One room is full of luxury, and dim
    With that soft moonlit radiance of light
That she best loves, who sits and dreams of him
    Her heart has crowned as knight.

And one is bare, and comfortless, and dim
    With that strange, fitful glimmer that is shed
By candles casting shadows weird and grim,
    Above the sheeted dead.

In one, a round and beautiful young face
    Is full of wordless rapture; and so fair
You know her breast is joy's best dwelling-place;
    You know sweet love is there.

In one, there lies a white and wasted face
    Whereon is frozen such supreme despair,
You need but look to know what left the trace;
    You know love has been there.

To one he comes!    She leans her head of gold
    Upon his breast...

The Castle of Indolence: Canto I (excerpt)

The Castle hight of Indolence,
And its false luxury;
Where for a little time, alas!
We liv'd right jollily.

O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date:
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.


In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found.
It was, I ween, a love...

[The fact to which the following verses refer, is related by Dr. Edward Clarke in his Travels.]


Blue sunny skies above; below,
    A blue and sunny sea;
A world of blue, wherein did blow
    One soft wind steadily.

In great and solemn heaves, the mass
    Of pulsing ocean beat,
Unwrinkled as the sea of glass
    Beneath the holy feet.

With forward leaning of desire,
    The ship sped calmly on,
A pilgrim strong that would not tire,
    Nor hasten to be gone.

The mouth of the mysterious Nile,
    Full thirty leagues away,
Breathed in his ear old tales to wile
    Old Ocean as he lay.

Low on the surface of the sea
    Faint sounds like whispers glide
Of lovers talking tremulously,
    Close by the vessel's ...

On an ancient vase representing in bas-relief the flight of Helen.


    This is the vase of Love
    Whose feet would ever rove
        O'er land and sea;
    Whose hopes forever seek
    Bright eyes, the vermeiled cheek,
        And ways made free.

    Do we not understand
    Why thou didst leave thy land,
        Thy spouse, thy hearth?
    Helen of Troy, Greek art
    Hath made our heart thy heart,
        Thy mirth our mirth.

    For Paris did appear,
    Curled hair and rosy ear
        And tapering hands.
    He spoke, the blood ran fast,
    He touched, and killed the past,
        And clove its bands.

    And this, I deem, is why
    The restless ages sigh,
        Helen, for thee.
    Whate'e...

I

I have risen again,
And awhile survey
By my chilly ray
Through your window-pane
Your upturned face,
As you think, "Ah-she
Now dreams of me
In her distant place!"

II

I pierce her blind
In her far-off home:
She fixes a comb,
And says in her mind,
"I start in an hour;
Whom shall I meet?
Won't the men be sweet,
And the women sour!"

[Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?]

That field by spirits bad and good,
By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
And every rood in the hemlock wood
I know is ground enchanted.

[In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts:
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.]

For in those lonely grounds the sun
Shines not as on the town,
In nearer arcs his journeys run,
And nearer stoops the moon.

There in a moment I have seen
The buried Past arise;
The fields of Thessaly grew green,
Old gods forsook the skies.

I cannot publish in my rhyme
What pranks the greenwood played;
It was the Carnival of time,
And ...

And can this be my own world?
    'Tis all gold and snow,
Save where scarlet waves are hurled
    Down yon gulf below.
'Tis thy world, 'tis my world,
    City, mead, and shore,
For he that hath his own world
    Hath many worlds more.

Only the footprints of the partridge run
Over the billowy drifts on the mountain-side;
And now on level wings the brown birds glide
Following the snowy curves, and in the sun
Bright birds of gold above the stainless white
They move, and as the pale blue shadows move,
With them my heart glides on in golden flight
Over the hills of quiet to my love.

Storm-shaken, racked with terror through the long
Tempestuous night, in the quiet blue of morn
Love drinks the crystal airs, and peace newborn
Within his troubled heart, on wings aglow
Soars into rapture, as from the quiet snow
The golden birds; and out of silence, song.

Not in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet alone in earth below,
With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker's glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame, -
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush,
Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,
And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered cross...

Here the sunshine, filtering down,
Through leaves of emerald, dun and brown,
                Is green instead of golden
And the hum and roar of the distant town
                In an endless hush is holden.

Twinkling bright through the shadowing limes.
The brook rains a sparkle of silver rhymes
                On the dragon-fly, its neighbour;
It pays no duty in dollars and dimes,
                For its work is all love-labour.

Here are no spindles, nor wheels to be whirled,
No forges nor looms from the outside world,
                Stunning the ear with clamour;
You hear but the whisper of leaves unfurled,
                And the tap of the woodpecker's hammer

Here are no books to be written or read,
But cushions of softest moss instead,

I plucked a snow-drop in the spring,
And in my hand too closely pressed;
The warmth had hurt the tender thing,
I grieved to see it withering.
I gave my love a poppy red,
And laid it on her snow-cold breast;
But poppies need a warmer bed,
We wept to find the flower was dead.

Before an Altar



I wish I were the little key
That locks Love's Captive in,
And lets Him out to go and free
A sinful heart from sin.

I wish I were the little bell
That tinkles for the Host,
When God comes down each day to dwell
With hearts He loves the most.

I wish I were the chalice fair,
That holds the Blood of Love,
When every flash lights holy prayer
Upon its way above.

I wish I were the little flower
So near the Host's sweet face,
Or like the light that half an hour
Burns on the shrine of grace.

I wish I were the altar where,
As on His mother's breast,
Christ nestles, like a child, fore'er
In Eucharistic rest.

But, oh! my God, I wish the most
That my poor heart may be
A home...

They pass before me, these Eyes full of light,
Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise;
The holy brothers pass before my sight,
And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes.

They keep me from all sin and error grave,
They set me in the path whence Beauty came;
They are my servants, and I am their slave,
And all my soul obeys the living flame.

Beautiful Eyes that gleam with mystic light
As candles lighted at full noon; the sun
Dims not your flame phantastical and bright.

You sing the dawn; they celebrate life done;
Marching you chaunt my soul's awakening hymn,
Stars that no sun has ever made grow dim!

After the ball last night, when I came home
I stood before my mirror, and took note
Of all that men call beautiful.    Delight,
Keen sweet delight, possessed me, when I saw
My own reflection smiling on me there,
Because your eyes, through all the swirling hours,
And in your slow good-night, had made a fact
Of what before I fancied might be so;
Yet knowing how men lie, by look and act,
I still had doubted.    But I doubt no more,
I know you love me, love me.    And I feel
Your satisfaction in my comeliness.

Beauty and youth, good health and willing mind,
A spotless reputation, and a heart
Longing for mating and for motherhood,
And lips unsullied by another's kiss -
These are the riches I can bring to you.

But as I sit here, thinking of it all

Were silver pink, and had a soul,
Which soul were shy, which shyness might
A visible influence be, and roll
Through heaven and earth - 'twere thou, O light!

O rhapsody of the wraith of red,
O blush but yet in prophecy,
O sun-hint that hath overspread
Sky, marsh, my soul, and yonder sail.

Those hewers of the clouds, the winds, that lair
At the four compass-points, are out to-night;
I hear their sandals trample on the height,
I hear their voices trumpet through the air.
Builders of Storm, God's workmen, now they bear,
Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might,
Huge tempest bulks, while, sweat that blinds their sight,
The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair:
Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom,
Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along
Heaven's floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue
Of skyey corridor and aëry room
Preparing, with large laughter and loud song,
For the white moon and stars to wander through.

Best and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs -

This morning is the morning of the day,
When I and Eustace from the city went
To see the Gardener’s Daughter; I and he,
Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete
Portion’d in halves between us, that we grew
The fable of the city where we dwelt.
My Eustace might have sat for Hercules;
So muscular he spread, so broad of breast.
He, by some law that holds in love, and draws
The greater to the lesser, long desired
A certain miracle of symmetry,
A miniature of loveliness, all grace
Summ’d up and closed in little;—Juliet, she
So light of foot, so light of spirit—oh, she
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not
Such touches are but embassies of love,
To tamper with the feelings,...