Identity

    How is it, O moon, that melting,
    Unstintedly, prodigally,
    On the peaks' hard majesty,
    Till they seem diaphanous
    And fluctuant as a veil,
    And pouring thy rapturous light
    Through pine, and oak, and laurel,
    Till the summer-sharpened green,
    Softening and tremulous,
    Is a lustrous miracle -
    How is it that I find,
    When I turn again to thee,
    That thy lost and wasted light
    Is regained in one magic breath?

They told me Pan was dead, but I
    Oft marvelled who it was that sang
Down the green valleys languidly
    Where the grey elder-thickets hang.

Sometimes I thought it was a bird
    My soul had charged with sorcery;
Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard
    Inland the sorrow of the sea.

But even where the primrose sets
    The seal of her pale loveliness,
I found amid the violets
    Tears of an antique bitterness.

What were sweet life without her
Who maketh all things sweet
With smiles that dream about her,
With dreams that come and fleet!
Soft moods that end in languor;
Soft words that end in sighs;
Curved frownings as of anger;
Cold silence of her eyes.

Sweet eyes born but for slaying,
Deep violet-dark and lost
In dreams of whilom Maying
In climes unstung of frost.
Wild eyes shot through with fire
God's light in godless years,
Brimmed wine-dark with desire,
A birth for dreams and tears.

Dear tears as sweet as laughter,
Low laughter sweet as love
Unwound in ripples after
Sad tears we knew not of.
What if the day be lawless,
What if the heart be dead,
Such tears would make it flawless,
Such laughter make it red.

...

        Because of the fullness of what I had
    All that I have seems void and vain.
        If I had not been happy I were not sad;
    Though my salt is savorless, why complain?

        From the ripe perfection of what was mine,
    All that is mine seems worse than naught;
        Yet I know as I sit in the dark and pine,
    No cup could be drained which had not been fraught.

        From the throb and thrill of a day that was,
    The day that now is seems dull with gloom;
        Yet I bear its dullness and darkness because
    'Tis but the reaction of glow and bloom.

        From the royal feast which of old was spread
    I am starved on the diet which now is mine;
        Yet I could not turn hungry from water and bread,
    If I had no...

Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood,
Even where horrible green parrots call and swing.
My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.
I knew that horse-play, knew it for a murderous thing.
What wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat,
And that alone; yet I, being driven half insane
Because of some green wing, gathered old mummy wheat
In the mad abstract dark and ground it grain by grain
And after baked it slowly in an oven; but now
I bring full-flavoured wine out of a barrel found
Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew
When Alexander's empire passed, they slept so sound.
Stretch out your limbs and sleep a long Saturnian sleep;
I have loved you better than my soul for all my words,
And there is none so fit to keep a watch and...

The cup of life is not so shallow
That we have drained the best,
That all the wine at once we swallow
And lees make all the rest.

Maids of as soft a bloom shall marry
As Hymen yet hath blessed,
And fairer forms are in the quarry
Than Phidias released.

The birds are all a-building,
They say the world’s a-flower,
And still I linger lonely
Within a barren bower.

I weave a web of fancies
Of tears and darkness spun.
How shall I sing of sunlight
Who never saw the sun?

I hear the pipes a-blowing,
But yet I may not dance,
I know that Love is passing,
I cannot catch his glance.

And if his voice should call me
And I with groping dim
Should reach his place of calling
And stretch my arms to him,

The wind would blow between my hands
For Joy that I shall miss,
The rain would fall upon my mouth
That his will never kiss.

    Do you remember, Leda?


    There are those who love, to whom Love brings
    Great gladness: such thing have not I.
    Love looks and has no mercy, brings
    Long doom to others.    Such was I.
    Heart breaking hand upon the lute,
    Touching one note only ... such were you.
    Who shall play now upon that lute
    Long last made musical by you?
    Sharp bird-beak in the swelling fruit,
    Blind frost upon the eyes of flowers.
    Who shall now praise the shrivelled fruit,
    Or raise the eyelids of those flowers?

    I dare not watch that hidden pool,
    Nor see the wild bird's sudden wing
    Lifting the wide, brown, shaken pool,
    But round me falls that secret wing,
    And in that sharp, perverse, sweet pain

A sloop of amber slips away
Upon an ether sea,
And wrecks in peace a purple tar,
The son of ecstasy.

Awf'lest boy in this-here town
Er anywheres is Elmer Brown!
He'll mock you - yes, an' strangers, too,
An' make a face an' yell at you, -
    "Here's the way you look!"

Yes, an' wunst in School one day,
An' Teacher's lookin' wite that way,
He helt his slate, an' hide his head,
An' maked a face at her, an' said, -
    "Here's the way you look!"

An' sir! when Rosie Wheeler smile
One morning at him 'crosst the aisle,
He twist his face all up, an' black
His nose wiv ink, an' whisper back, -
    "Here's the way you look!"

Wunst when his Aunt's all dressed to call,
An' kiss him good-bye in the hall,
An' latch the gate an' start away,
He holler out to her an' say, -
    "Here's th...

What is song's eternity?
Come and see.
Can it noise and bustle be?
Come and see.
Praises sung or praises said
Can it be?
Wait awhile and these are dead--
Sigh, sigh;
Be they high or lowly bred    They die.

What is song's eternity?
Come and see.
Melodies of earth and sky,
Here they be.
Song once sung to Adam's ears
Can it be?
Ballads of six thousand years
Thrive, thrive;
Songs awaken with the spheres
Alive.

Mighty songs that miss decay,
What are they?
Crowds and cities pass away
Like a day.
Books are out and books are read;
What are they?
Years will lay them with the dead--
Sigh, sigh;
Trifles unto nothing wed,
They die.

Dreamers, mark the honey bee;
Mark the tree
Where...

End.    Ah! Lycidas, come tell me why
Thy whilom merry oat
By thee doth so neglected lie,
And never purls a note?

I prithee speak. Lyc. I will. End. Say on.
Lyc.    'Tis thou, and only thou,
That art the cause, Endymion.
End.    For love's sake, tell me how.

Lyc.    In this regard: that thou do'st play
Upon another plain,
And for a rural roundelay
Strik'st now a courtly strain.

Thou leav'st our hills, our dales, our bowers,
Our finer fleeced sheep,
Unkind to us, to spend thine hours
Where shepherds should not keep.

I mean the court: Let Latmos be
My lov'd Endymion's court.
End.    But I the courtly state would see.
Lyc.    Then see it in report.

What has t...

She sleeps and I see through a shadowy haze,
Where the hopes of the past and the dreams that I cherished
In the sunlight of brighter and happier days,
As the mists of the morning, have faded and perished.
She sleeps and will waken to bless me no more;
Her life has died out like the gleam on the river,
And the bliss that illumined my bosom of yore
Has fled from its dwelling for ever and ever.

I had thought in this life not to travel alone,
I had hoped for a mate in my joys and my sorrow
But the face of my idol is colder than stone,
And my path will be lonely without her to-morrow.
I was hoping to bask in the light of her smile
When Fortune and Fame with their laurels had crown’d me
But the fire in her eyes has been dying the while,
And the thorns of affliction...

Rich in the waning light she sat
While the fierce rain on the window spat.
The yellow lamp-glow lit her face,
Shadows cloaked the narrow place
She sat adream in. Then she'd look
Idly upon an idle book;
Anon would rise and musing peer
Out at the misty street and drear;
Or with her loosened dark hair play,
Hiding her fingers' snow away;
And, singing softly, would sing on
When the desire of song had gone.
"O lingering day!" her bosom sighed,
"O laggard Time!" each motion cried.
Last she took the lamp and stood
Rich in its flood,
And looked and looked again at what
Her longing fingers' zeal had wrought;
And turning then did nothing say,
Hiding her thoughts away.

Even the beauteous must die! This vanquishes men and immortals;
But of the Stygian god moves not the bosom of steel.
Once and once only could love prevail on the ruler of shadows,
And on the threshold, e'en then, sternly his gift he recalled.
Venus could never heal the wounds of the beauteous stripling,
That the terrible boar made in his delicate skin;
Nor could his mother immortal preserve the hero so godlike,
When at the west gate of Troy, falling, his fate he fulfilled.
But she arose from the ocean with all the daughters of Nereus,
And o'er her glorified son raised the loud accents of woe.
See! where all the gods and goddesses yonder are weeping,
That the beauteous must fade, and that the perfect must die.
Even a woe-song to be in the mouth of the loved ones is glorious,
...

Oh, soon the forests all will boast
    A crown of red and gold;
A purple haze will circle round
    The mountains dim and old;
Afar the hills, now green and fair,
    Their sombre robes will wear;
A mist-like veil will dim the sun
    And linger on the air.

Already seems the earth half sad
    The summer-child is dead;
And who can tell the dreams gone by,
    The tales of life unsaid?
September is a glowing time;
    A month of happy hours;
Yet in its crimson heart lies hid
    The frost that kills the flowers.

Life, too, may feel the glory near
    And wear its crown of gold;
Yet are the snows not nearest then?
    Are hearts not growing old?
September is the prime of life,
    The glory of the year;
Yet when the lea...

Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
Met me walking on yonder way;
‘And have you lost your heart?’ she said;
‘And are you married yet, Edward Gray?’

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me;
Bitterly weeping I turn’d away:
‘Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

‘Ellen Adair she loved me well,
Against her father’s and mother’s will;
To-day I sat for an hour and wept
By Ellen’s grave, on the windy hill.

‘Shy she was, and I thought her cold,
Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Fill’d I was with folly and spite,
When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

‘Cruel, cruel the words I said!
Cruelly came they back to-day:
“You’re too slight and fickle,” I said,
“To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.”

‘T...

Had fallen a fragrant shower;
The leaves were dripping yet;
Each fern and rain-weighed flower
Around were gleaming wet;
On ev'ry bosky bower
A million gems were set.

The dust's moist odors sifted
Cool with the summer rain,
Mixed with the musk that drifted
From orchard and from plain; -
Her garden's fence white lifted
Its length along the lane.

The moon the clouds had shattered
In curdled peaks of pearl;
The honeysuckle scattered
Warm odors from each curl,
Where the white moonlight, flattered,
Hung molten 'round a girl.

Then grew the night completer
With light and cloud and air;
Aromas sweet blew sweeter,
Sweet flowers fair, more fair;
Fleet feet and fast grew fleeter
Thro' that fair sorceress there.