War

The air is like a butterfly
    With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
    And sings.

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness, to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

Talk not, my Lord, of unrequited love,
Since love requites itself most royally.
Do we not live but by the sun above,
And takes he any heed of thee or me?

Though in my firmament thou wilt not shine,
Thy glory, as a Star, is none the less.
Oh, Rose, though all unplucked by hand of mine,
Still am I debtor to thy loveliness.

The robin laughed in the orange-tree:
"Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:
While breasts are red and wings are bold
And green trees wave us globes of gold,
Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me
- Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree.

Burn, golden globes in leafy sky,
My orange-planets: crimson I
Will shine and shoot among the spheres
(Blithe meteor that no mortal fears)
And thrid the heavenly orange-tree
With orbits bright of minstrelsy.

If that I hate wild winter's spite -
The gibbet trees, the world in white,
The sky but gray wind over a grave -
Why should I ache, the season's slave?
I'll sing from the top of the orange-tree
`Gramercy, winter's tyranny.'

I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime;
My wing is king of the summe...

Eternity is passion, girl or boy
Cry at the onset of their sexual joy
"For ever and for ever'; then awake
Ignorant what Dramatis personae spake;
A passion-driven exultant man sings out
Sentences that he has never thought;
The Flagellant lashes those submissive loins
Ignorant what that dramatist enjoins,
What master made the lash. Whence had they come,
The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome?
What sacred drama through her body heaved
When world-transforming Charlemagne was con-
ceived?

Crisply the bright snow whispered,
Crunching beneath our feet;
Behind us as we walked along the parkway,
Our shadows danced,
Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.
Across the lake the skaters
Flew to and fro,
With sharp turns weaving
A frail invisible net.
In ecstacy the earth
Drank the silver sunlight;
In ecstacy the skaters
Drank the wine of speed;
In ecstacy we laughed
Drinking the wine of love.
Had not the music of our joy
Sounded its highest note?
But no,
For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,
“Oh look!”
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,
Fearless and gay as our love,
A bluejay cocked his crest!
Oh who can tell the range of joy
Or set the bounds of beauty?

Maruaile not Loue, though I thy power admire,
Rauish'd a world beyond the farthest thought,
That knowing more then euer hath beene taught,
That I am onely staru'd in my desire;
Maruaile not Loue, though I thy power admire,
Ayming at things exceeding all perfection,
To wisedoms selfe, to minister direction,
That I am onely staru'd in my desire;
Maruaile not Loue, though I thy power admire,
Though my conceite I farther seeme to bend,
Then possibly inuention can extend,
And yet am onely staru'd in my desire;
    If thou wilt wonder, heers the wonder loue,
    That this to mee doth yet no wonder proue.

In sixteen hundred and forty-one,
The regular yearly galleon,
Laden with odorous gums and spice,
India cottons and India rice,
And the richest silks of far Cathay,
Was due at Acapulco Bay.

Due she was, and overdue,
Galleon, merchandise and crew,
Creeping along through rain and shine,
Through the tropics, under the line.
The trains were waiting outside the walls,
The wives of sailors thronged the town,
The traders sat by their empty stalls,
And the Viceroy himself came down;
The bells in the tower were all a-trip,
Te Deums were on each Father’s lip,
The limes were ripening in the sun
For the sick of the coming galleon.

All in vain. Weeks passed away,
And yet no galleon saw the bay.
India goods advanced in price;
The Governor...

A baby went to heaven while it slept,
    And, waking, missed its mother's arms, and wept.
Those angel tear-drops, falling earthward through
    God's azure skies, into the turquoise grew.

I had a daily bliss
I half indifferent viewed,
Till sudden I perceived it stir, --
It grew as I pursued,

Till when, around a crag,
It wasted from my sight,
Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,
I learned its sweetness right.

Pleasure! why thus desert the heart
In its spring-tide?
I could have seen her, I could part,
And but have sigh'd!

O'er every youthful charm to stray,
To gaze, to touch....
Pleasure! why take so much away,
Or give so much?

Thou Gracious Power, whose mercy lends
The light of home, the smile of friends,
Our gathered flock thine arms infold
As in the peaceful days of old.

Wilt thou not hear us while we raise,
In sweet accord of solemn praise,
The voices that have mingled long
In joyous flow of mirth and song?

For all the blessings life has brought,
For all its sorrowing hours have taught,
For all we mourn, for all we keep,
The hands we clasp, the loved that sleep;

The noontide sunshine of the past,
These brief, bright moments fading fast,
The stars that gild our darkening years,
The twilight ray from holier spheres;

We thank thee, Father! let thy grace
Our narrowing circle still embrace,
Thy mercy shed its heavenly store,
Thy peace be with us ...

I held my heart so far from harm,
I let it wander far and free
In mead and mart, without alarm,
Assured it must come back to me.

And all went well till on a day,
Learned Dr. Cupid wandered by
A search along our sylvan way
For some peculiar butterfly.

A flash of wings, a hurried dive,
A flutter and a short-lived flit;
This Scientist, as I am alive
Had seen my heart and captured it.

Right tightly now 'tis held among
The specimens that he has trapped,
And sings (Oh, love is ever young),
'Tis passing sweet to be kidnaped.

Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree,
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most contantly?
The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who wil call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.

Last year I trod these fields with Di,
Fields fresh with clover and with rye;
    They now seem arid!
Then Di was fair and single; how
Unfair it seems on me, for now
    Di's fair, and married!

A blissful swain, I scorn'd the song
Which says that though young Love is strong,
    The Fates are stronger;
Breezes then blew a boon to men,
The buttercups were bright, and then
    This grass was longer.

That day I saw and much esteem'd
Di's ankles, which the clover seem'd
    Inclined to smother;
It twitch'd, and soon untied (for fun)
The ribbon of her shoes, first one,
    And then the other.

I'm told that virgins augur some
Misfortune if their shoe-strings come
    To grief on Friday:
And so did Di, and then her pride

SOUND, sweet song, from some far land,
Sighing softly close at hand,

Now of joy, and now of woe!

Stars are wont to glimmer so.

Sooner thus will good unfold;
Children young and children old
Gladly hear thy numbers flow.

How do I hate the tide of vulgar thought!
Profane, unjust, with childish folly fraught;
It breaks and bends the rays of truth divine,
And by its own conceptions measures mine.
Famed Epicurus' master[1] tried
The power of this unstable tide.
His country said the sage was mad -
The simpletons! But why?
No prophet ever honour had
Beneath his native sky.
Democritus, in truth, was wise;
The mass were mad, with faith in lies.
So far this error went,
That all Abdera sent
To old Hippocrates
To cure the sad disease.
'Our townsman,' said the messengers,
Appropriately shedding tears,
'Hath lost his wits! Democritus,
By study spoil'd, is lost to us.
Were he but fill'd with ignorance,
We should esteem him less a dunce.
He saith that...

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;
Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.