Death

I've paid thee what I promis'd; that's not all;
Besides I give thee here a verse that shall
(When hence thy circummortal part is gone),
Arch-like, hold up thy name's inscription.
Brave men can't die, whose candid actions are
Writ in the poet's endless calendar:
Whose vellum and whose volume is the sky,
And the pure stars the praising poetry.
Farewell

    A month or twain to live on honeycomb
    Is pleasant, but to eat it for a year
    Is simply beastly.    Thus the poet spake,
    Feeling how sticky all his stomach was
    With hivings of ten thousand cheated bees.
    O wisdom that could shape immortal words
    And frame a diet for dyspeptic man!
    But what of turnips?    Come, a lyric now
    Upon the luscious roots unsung as yet,
    (Not roots I know but stalks; still, never mind,
    Metre and sauce will suit them just as well)
    Or shall we speak of omelettes?    Muse, begin!
    To feed a fortnight on transmuted eggs
    Would doubtless be both comforting and cheap
    But oh, the nausea on the fourteenth day!
    I'd rather read a book by Ezra Pound
    Then choke the seven hundredth omelett...

Who learns my lesson complete?
Boss, journeyman, apprentice, churchman and atheist,
The stupid and the wise thinker, parents and offspring, merchant, clerk, porter and customer,
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy, Draw nigh and commence;
It is no lesson, it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still.

The great laws take and effuse without argument;
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits, I do not halt, and make salaams.

I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons of things;
They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.

I cannot say to any person what I hear, I cannot say it to myself, it is very wonderful.

It is no small matter, this round and ...

    When the fields are rolled into naked gold,
        And a ripple of fire and pearl is blent
    With the emerald surges of wood and wold
        Like a flower-foam bursting violent;
    When the dingles and deeps of the woodlands old
        Are glad with a sibilant life new sent,
    Too rare to be told are the manifold
        Sweet fancies that quicken redolent
    In the heart that no longer is cold.

    How it knows of the wings of the hawk that swings
        From the drippled dew scintillant seen;
    Why the red-bird hides where it sings and sings
        In melodious quiverings of green;
    How the wind to the red-bud and dogwood brings
        Big pearls of worth and corals of sheen,
    Whiles he lisps to the strings of a lute that rings
...

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;

First stars above a snowy hill,
Voices of people kindly and wise,
And the great look of love, long hidden,
Found at last in meeting eyes.

I have loved much and been loved deeply,
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go.

O! hast thou seen a vernal Morning bright
    Gem every bank and trembling leaf with dews,
    Tinging the green fields with her amber hues,
    Changing the leaden streams to lines of light?
Then seen dull Clouds, that shed untimely night,
    Roll envious on, and every ray suffuse,
    Till the chill'd Scenes their early beauty lose,
    And faint, and colourless, no more invite
The glistening gaze of Joy? - 'Twas emblem just
    Of my youth's sun, on which deep shadows fell,
    Spread from the PALL OF FRIENDS; and Grief's loud gust
Resistless, oft wou'd wasted tears compel:
    Yet let me hope, that on my darken'd days
    Science, and pious Trust, may shed pervading rays.

Lusisti est, et edisti, atque bibisti; Tempus abire, tibi est.

Take away the dancing girls, quench the lights, remove
Golden cups and garlands sere, all the feast; away
Lutes and lyres and Lalage; close the gates, above
Write upon the lintel this; Time is done for play!
Thou hast had thy fill of love, eaten, drunk; the show
Ends at last, 'twas long enough - time it is to go.

Thou hast played - ah! heart, how long! - past all count were they,
Girls of gold and ivory, bosomed deep, all snow,
Leopard swift, and velvet loined, bronze for hair, wild clay
Turning at a touch to flame, tense as a strung bow.
Cruel as the circling hawk, tame at last as dove, -
Thou hast had thy fill and more than enough of love.

Thou hast eaten; peacock's tongues, - fe...

‘O monstrous, dead, unprofitable world,
That thou canst hear, and hearing, hold thy way.
A voice oracular hath peal’d to-day,
To-day a hero’s banner is unfurl’d.
Hast thou no lip for welcome?’ So I said.
Man after man, the world smil’d and pass’d by:
A smile of wistful incredulity
As though one spike of noise unto the dead:
Scornful, and strange, and sorrowful; and full
Of bitter knowledge. Yet the Will is free:
Strong is the Soul, and wise, and beautiful:
The seeds of godlike power are in us still:
Gods are we, Bards, Saints, Heroes, if we will.
Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery

I dreamed that life and time and space were one,
    And the pure trance of dawn;
    The increase drawn
From all the journeys of the travelling sun,
And the long mysteries of sound and sight,
    The whispering rains,
And far, calm waters set in lonely plains,
    And cry of birds at night.

I dreamed that these and love and death were one,
    And all eternity,
    The life to be
Therewith entwined, throughout the ages spun;
And so with Grief, my playmate; him I knew
    One with the rest, -
One with the mounting day, the east and west -
    Lord, is it true?
Lord, do I dream? Methinks a key unlocks
Some dungeon door, in thrall of blackened towers,
On ecstasies, half hid, like chill white flowers
Blown in the secret places of the rocks.

When sycamore leaves wer a-spreaden
Green-ruddy in hedges,
Bezide the red doust o' the ridges,
A-dried at Woak Hill;

I packed up my goods, all a-sheenen
Wi' long years o' handlen,
On dousty red wheels ov a waggon,
To ride at Woak Hill.

The brown thatchen ruf o' the dwellen
I then wer a-leaven,
Had sheltered the sleek head o' Meary,
My bride at Woak Hill.

But now vor zome years, her light voot-vall
'S a-lost vrom the vlooren.
To soon vor my jay an' my childern
She died at Woak Hill.

But still I do think that, in soul,
She do hover about us;
To ho vor her motherless childern,
Her pride at Woak Hill.

Zoo -lest she should tell me hereafter
I stole off 'ithout her,
An' left her, uncalled at house-ridden,

Once upon a midnight dreary, as I sauntered weak and weary
From a jovial fellow-student's room upon another floor;
As I sauntered, sadder, sicker, suddenly I heard a snicker,
And the lights began to flicker, and right out went three or four.
"Some infernal trick!" I muttered, as I neared my chamber door;
        "I won't stand this any more."

Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in my first September,
And each night-attired member fled like ghost upon the floor.
Lamp I vainly sought to borrow, though I threatened on the morrow
They would catch it to their sorrow, they would catch it sad and sore -
I would have them on the morrow the dread Faculty before -
        Fearful here for evermore.

And the hushed and humorous talking, and the doors' successive locking
Filled...

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second-comer, waiting.

He lifted his he...

When they were come into Faery's Court
They rang, no one at home, all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faerys do
For Faries be as human lovers true,
Amid the woods they were so lone and wild
Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd
And where the very books as if affraid
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
'No one at home'! the fretful princess cry'd
'And all for nothing such a dre[a]ry ride
And all for nothing my new diamond cross
No one to see my persian feathers toss
No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool
Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule.
Ape, Dwarf and Fool why stand you gaping there
Burst the door open, quick, or I declare
I'll switch you soundly and in pieces tear.'
The Dwarf began to tremble and the Ape
Star'd at the Fool, the Fo...

God-Full-of-Mercy, the prayer for the dead.
If God was not full of mercy,
Mercy would have been in the world,
Not just in Him.
I, who plucked flowers in the hills
And looked down into all the valleys,
I, who brought corpses down from the hills,
Can tell you that the world is empty of mercy.
I, who was King of Salt at the seashore,
Who stood without a decision at my window,
Who counted the steps of angels,
Whose heart lifted weights of anguish
In the horrible contests.

I, who use only a small part
Of the words in the dictionary.

I, who must decipher riddles
I don't want to decipher,
Know that if not for the God-full-of-mercy
There would be mercy in the world,
Not just in Him.

"O thou Almighty Father, who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confin'd,
But that with love intenser there thou view'st
Thy primal effluence, hallow'd be thy name:
Join each created being to extol
Thy might, for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit. May thy kingdom's peace
Come unto us; for we, unless it come,
With all our striving thither tend in vain.
As of their will the angels unto thee
Tender meet sacrifice, circling thy throne
With loud hosannas, so of theirs be done
By saintly men on earth. Grant us this day
Our daily manna, without which he roams
Through this rough desert retrograde, who most
Toils to advance his steps. As we to each
Pardon the evil done us, pardon thou
Benign, and of our merit take no count.
...

I will tell you when they met:
In the limpid days of Spring;
Elder boughs were budding yet,
Oaken boughs looked wintry still,
But primrose and veined violet
In the mossful turf were set,
While meeting birds made haste to sing
And build with right good will.

I will tell you when they parted:
When plenteous Autumn sheaves were brown,
Then they parted heavy-hearted;
The full rejoicing sun looked down
As grand as in the days before;
Only they had lost a crown;
Only to them those days of yore
Could come back nevermore.

When shall they meet? I cannot tell,
Indeed, when they shall meet again,
Except some day in Paradise:
For this they wait, one waits in pain.
Beyond the sea of death love lies
For ever, yesterday, to-day;
Ange...

Beyond a ridge of pine with russet tips
The west lifts to the sun her longing lips,

Her blushes stain with gold and garnet dye
The shore, the river and the wide far sky;

Like floods of wine the waters filter through
The reeds that brush our indolent canoe.

I beach the bow where sands in shadows lie;
You hold my hand a space, then speak good-bye.

Upwinds your pathway through the yellow plumes
Of goldenrod, profuse in August blooms,

And o'er its tossing sprays you toss a kiss;
A moment more, and I see only this -

The idle paddle you so lately held,
The empty bow your pliant wrist propelled,

Some thistles purpling into violet,
Their blossoms with a thousand thorns afret,

And like a cobweb, shadowy and grey,
Far...

Read, sweet, how others strove,
Till we are stouter;
What they renounced,
Till we are less afraid;
How many times they bore
The faithful witness,
Till we are helped,
As if a kingdom cared!

Read then of faith
That shone above the fagot;
Clear strains of hymn
The river could not drown;
Brave names of men
And celestial women,
Passed out of record
Into renown!