I never walk along the street
    Because I haven't any feet;
Nor is this strange when I repeat
    That I am but a garden beet.

River! that in silence windest
Through the meadows, bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!

Four long years of mingled feeling,
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing
Onward, like the stream of life.

Thou hast taught me, Silent River!
    Many a lesson, deep and long;
Thou hast been a generous giver;
    I can give thee but a song.

Oft in sadness and in illness,
    I have watched thy current glide,
Till the beauty of its stillness
    Overflowed me, like a tide.

And in better hours and brighter,
    When I saw thy waters gleam,
I have felt my heart beat lighter,
    And leap onward with thy stream.

Not for this alone I love thee,
    Nor be...

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,
    Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,
    And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers.
A poet's face asleep is this grey morn.

Now in the midst of the old world forlorn
    A mystic child is set in these still hours.
    I keep this time, even before the flowers,
Sacred to all the young and the unborn;

To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat,
    And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal,
            And to the future of my own young art,

And, among all these things, to you, my sweet,
    My friend, to your calm face and the immortal
            Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart.

Thou who hast follow'd far with eyes of love
The shy and virgin sights of Spring to-day,
Sad soul, what dost thou in this happy grove?
Hast thou no pipe to touch, no strain to play,
Where Nature smiles so fair and seems to ask a lay?

Ah! she needs none! she is too beautiful.
How should I sing her? for my heart would tire,
Seeking a lovelier verse each time to cull,
In striving still to pitch my music higher:
Lovelier than any muse is she who gives the fire!

No impulse I beseech; my strains are vile:
To escape thee, Nature, restless here I rove.
Look not so sweet on me, avert thy smile!
O cease at length this fever'd breast to move!
I have loved thee in vain; I cannot speak my love.

Here sense with apathy seems gently wed:
The gloom is starr'd...

Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend,
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green fields of flowers.

Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk,
Be't calico or silk:
Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.

In the silver light after a storm,
Under dripping boughs of bright new green,
I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks
Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.
What have I to fear in life or death
Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,
The white flying joy when a song is born,
And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.

Elizabeth, it surely is most fit
[Logic and common usage so commanding]
In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;
And I have other reasons for so doing
Besides my innate love of contradiction;
Each poet, if a poet, in pursuing
The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
Has studied very little of his part,
Read nothing, written less, in short's a fool
Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,
Being ignorant of one important rule,
Employed in even the theses of the school,
Called, I forget the heathenish Greek name
[Called anything, its meaning is the same]
"Always write first things uppermost in the heart."

Once more the windless days are here,
Quiet of autumn, when the year
Halts and looks backward and draws breath
Before it plunges into death.
Silver of mist and gossamers,
Through-shine of noonday's glassy gold,
Pale blue of skies, where nothing stirs
Save one blanched leaf, weary and old,
That over and over slowly falls
From the mute elm-trees, hanging on air
Like tattered flags along the walls
Of chapels deep in sunlit prayer.
Once more ... Within its flawless glass
To-day reflects that other day,
When, under the bracken, on the grass,
We who were lovers happily lay
And hardly spoke, or framed a thought
That was not one with the calm hills
And crystal sky. Ourselves were nought,
Our gusty passions, our burning wills
Dissolved in boundlessn...

It covered all
The cold east wall,
Its green, thin gold, purple, brown,
And flame running up and down;
Lifting its quiet bosom to every wind that crept
Up the high wall and in its darkness slept.
Then when the wind slept all the creeper turned
To undiminishing fire that burned and burned and burned.

But one black night
(For not in the light
May such treacheries be done)
Came with dishonoured weapon one
And cut the stem just where the branches thin
Their million-leaf'd wild wandering begin:
Cut the firm stem quite through, and so it bled,
And all the million leaves shivered and hung there dead.

The wall how cold,
The house how old
Became when that warm bright fire died,
And the fond wind could no more hide.
And it was strange tha...

Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,
The freshness of the elder lays, the might
Of manly, modern passion shall alight
Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope
(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)
With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite
The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;
Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.
But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave
O'erbrowed by hard rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,
Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong
To one in love with solitude and song.

Oh, roses, roses everywhere but only one for me!
But one wild-rose for me, my boy, your face that's like the morn's;
My rose of roses, dear my lad, my dark-eyed Romany;
The world may keep its roses now, that gave me only thorns.

Oh, song and singing everywhere; the woods are wild with song:
One simple song I knew, my lad, you crooned it in my ears;
It cheered my way by night and day; but, oh, the way was long!
And all the hard world gave to me was evil words and sneers.

Oh, song and blossoms everywhere and nature full of love:
But one sweet look of love was mine, and that you gave, my joy:
A look of love, a look of trust they helped my heart enough;
They helped me bear the look of scorn, the world's black look, my boy.

Oh, spring and love are everywhere; soft br...

Night spreads upon the plain her ebon pall,
Day seems unable to wash out the stain;
A pausing truce kind nature gives to all,
And fairy nations now have leave to reign:
So may conjecturing Fancy think, and feign.
Doubtless in tiny legions, now unseen,
They venture from their dwellings once again:
From keck-stalk cavity, or hollow bean,
Or perfum'd bosom of pea-flower between,
They to the dark green rings now haste, to meet,
To dance, or pay some homage to their queen;
Or journey on, some pilgrim-friend to greet.
With rushy switch they urge some beetle's flight,
And ride to revel, ere 'tis morning-light.

    The beam of morning trembling
        Stole o'er the mountain brook,
    With timid ray resembling
        Affection's early look.
Thus love begins--sweet morn of love!

    The noon-tide ray ascended,
        And o'er the valley's stream
    Diffused a glow as splendid
        As passion's riper dream.
Thus love expands--warm noon of love!

    But evening came, o'ershading
        The glories of the sky,
    Like faith and fondness fading
        From passion's altered eye.
Thus love declines--cold eve of love!

Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
    Be with me travelling on the byeway now
In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
    By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow
    Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:
And we will mark in his white smock the mill
    Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind,
That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still;
    But now there is not any grain to grind,
    And even the master lies too deep for winds to find.

Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain
    With lusty sails that leap and drop away
On further knolls, and lads to fetch the grain.
    The ash-spit wickets on the green betray
    New games begun and old ones put away.
Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend,
    Whe...

Roaring is nothing but a weeping part
Forced from the mighty dolour of the heart.

Dead leaves are deep in all our forest walks;
    Their brightest tints not all extinguished yet,
    Shine redly glimmering through the dewy wet;
    And whereso'er thy musing foot is set,
The fragrant cool-wort lifts its emerald stalks.

How kindly nature wraps secure and warm,
    In the fallen mantle of her summer pride,
    These lovely tender things that peep and hide,
    Whom unawares thy curious eye hath spied,
For the long night of winter's frost and storm.

Still keeps the deer-berry its vivid green,
    Set in its glowing calyx like a gem;
    While hung above, a marvellous diadem
    Of tawny gold, the bittersweet's gray stem,
Strung with its globes of murky flame is seen.

The foot sinks ankle-deep in velvet moss,
    The shroud of...

Bird of the morn,
When roseate clouds begin
To show the opening dawn
Thou gladly sing'st it in,
And o'er the sweet green fields and happy vales
Thy pleasant song is heard, mixed with the morning gales.

Bird of the morn,
What time the ruddy sun
Smiles on the pleasant corn
Thy singing is begun,
Heartfelt and cheering over labourers' toil,
Who chop in coppice wild and delve the russet soil.

Bird of the sun,
How dear to man art thou!
When morning has begun
To gild the mountain's brow,
How beautiful it is to see thee soar so blest,
Winnowing thy russet wings above thy twitchy nest.

Bird of the Summer's day,
How oft I stand to hear
Thee sing thy airy lay,
With music wild and clear,
Till thou becom'st a speck upon the s...

Hark! upon the east-wind, piping, creeping,
Comes a voice all clamorous with despair;
It is April, crying sore and weeping,
O'er the chilly earth, so brown and bare.

"When I went away," she murmurs, sobbing,
"All my violet-banks were starred with blue;
Who, O, who has been here, basely robbing
Bloom and odor from the fragrant crew?

"Who has reft the robin's hidden treasure,--
All the speckled spheres he loved so well?
And the buds which danced in merry measure
To the chiming of the hyacinth's bell?

"Where are all my hedge-rows, flushed with Maying?
And the leafy rain, that tossed so fair,
Like the spray from silver fountains playing,
Where the elm-tree's column rose in air?

"All are vanished, and my heart is breaking;
And my tears ...