"The tender Grace of a day that is past."

The dew is on the roses,
The owl hath spread her wing;
And vocal are the noses
Of peasant and of king:
"Nature" (in short) "reposes;"
But I do no such thing.

Pent in my lonesome study
Here I must sit and muse;
Sit till the morn grows ruddy,
Till, rising with the dews,
"Jeameses" remove the muddy
Spots from their masters' shoes.

Yet are sweet faces flinging
Their witchery o'er me here:
I hear sweet voices singing
A song as soft, as clear,
As (previously to stinging)
A gnat sings round one's ear.

Does Grace draw young Apollos
In blue mustachios still?
Does Emma tell the swallows
How she will pipe and trill,
When, some fine day, she follows
Those birds to the...

Hail to thee, mountain beloved, with thy glittering purple-dyed summit!
Hail to thee also, fair sun, looking so lovingly on!
Thee, too, I hail, thou smiling plain, and ye murmuring lindens,
Ay, and the chorus so glad, cradled on yonder high boughs;
Thee, too, peaceably azure, in infinite measure extending
Round the dusky-hued mount, over the forest so green,
Round about me, who now from my chamber's confinement escaping,
And from vain frivolous talk, gladly seek refuge with thee.
Through me to quicken me runs the balsamic stream of thy breezes,
While the energetical light freshens the gaze as it thirsts.
Bright o'er the blooming meadow the changeable colors are gleaming,
But the strife, full of charms, in its own grace melts away
Freely the plain receives me, with carpet far away...

His mission soon accomplished,
His race on earth soon run,
He passed to realms of glory,
Above the rising sun.

So beautiful that infant,
When in death's arms he lay;
It seemed like peaceful slumber,
That morn might chase away.

But morning light was powerless,
Those eyelids to unclose;
And sunshine saw and left him,
In undisturbed repose.

The light of those blue orbs
That drank the sunbeams in,
Now yields to night, and darkness
Holds undisputed reign.

That little form so graceful,
The light brown chestnut hair;
Those half formed words when uttered,
That face so sweet and fair;

All, all his ways so winning,
Were impotent to save
His life, when called to yield it
By Him that life who gave.

O thought, fly to her when the end of day
Awakens an old memory, and say,
"Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind,
It might call up a new age, calling to mind
The queens that were imagined long ago,
Is but half yours: he kneaded in the dough
Through the long years of youth, and who would have thought
It all, and more than it all, would come to naught,
And that dear words meant nothing?" But enough,
For when we have blamed the wind we can blame love;
Or, if there needs be more, be nothing said
That would be harsh for children that have strayed.

I.

'Tis pretty to see the girl of Dunbwy
Stepping the mountain statelily--
Though ragged her gown, and naked her feet,
No lady in Ireland to match her is meet.


II.

Poor is her diet, and hardly she lies--
Yet a monarch might kneel for a glance of her eyes.
The child of a peasant--yet England's proud Queen
Has less rank in her heart, and less grace in her mien.


III.

Her brow 'neath her raven hair gleams, just as if
A breaker spread white 'neath a shadowy cliff--
And love, and devotion, and energy speak
From her beauty-proud eye, and her passion-pale cheek.


IV.

But, pale as her cheek is, there's fruit on her lip,
And her teeth flash as white as the crescent moon's tip,
And her form and her step...

I think the moon is very kind
To take such trouble just for me.
He came along with me from home
To keep me company.

He went as fast as I could run;
I wonder how he crossed the sky?
I'm sure he hasn't legs and feet
Or any wings to fly.

Yet here he is above their roof;
Perhaps he thinks it isn't right
For me to go so far alone,
Tho' mother said I might.

Dian, that faine would cheare her friend the Night,
Shewes her oft, at the full, her fairest face,
Bringing with her those starry Nymphs, whose chace
From heau'nly standing hits each mortall wight.
But ah, poore Night, in loue with Phoebus light,
And endlesly dispairing of his grace,
Her selfe, to shewe no other ioy hath place;
Sylent and sad, in mourning weedes doth dight.
Euen so (alas) a lady, Dians peere,
With choise delights and rarest company
Would faine driue cloudes from out my heauy cheere;
But, wo is me, though Ioy her selfe were she,
Shee could not shew my blind braine waies of ioy,
While I despaire my sunnes sight to enioy.

I.
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II.
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb’d I would sing and say,
“Who is it loves me? who loves not me?”
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall,
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound,
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold

Equal is the government of heaven in allotting pleasures among men,
And just the everlasting law, that hath wedded happiness to virtue:
For verily on all things else broodeth disappointment with care,
That childish man may be taught the shallowness of earthly enjoyment.
Wherefore, ye that have enough, envy ye the rich man his abundance?
Wherefore, daughters of affluence, covet ye the cottager's content?
Take the good with the evil, for ye all are pensioners of God,
And none may choose or refuse the cup His wisdom mixeth.
The poor man rejoiceth at his toil, and his daily meat is sweet to him;
Content with present good, he looketh not for evil to the future:
The rich man languisheth with sloth, and findeth pleasure in nothing.
He locketh up care with his gold, and feareth the fickleness...

Windy the sky and mad;
Surly the gray March day;
Bleak the forests and sad,
Sad for the beautiful May.

On maples tasseled with red
No blithe bird swinging sung;
The brook in its lonely bed
Complained in an unknown tongue.

We walked in the wasted wood:
Her face as the Spring's was fair,
Her blood was the Spring's own blood,
The Spring's her radiant hair,

And we found in the windy wild
One cowering violet,
Like a frail and tremulous child
In the caked leaves bowed and wet.

And I sighed at the sight, with pain
For the May's warm face in the wood,
May's passions of sun and rain,
May's raiment of bloom and of bud.

But she said when she saw me sad,
"Tho' the world be gloomy as fate,
And we yearn for the day...

You know,
Don't you, Joe,
Those merry evenings long ago?
You know the room, the narrow stair,
The wreaths of smoke that circled there,
The corner table where we sat
For hours in after-dinner chat,
And magnified
Our little world inside.
You know,
Don't you, Joe?

Ah, those nights divine!
The simple, frugal wine,
The airs on crude Italian strings,
The joyous, harmless revelings,
Just fit for us - or kings!
At times a quaint and wickered flask
Of rare Chianti, or from the homelier cask
Of modest Pilsener a stein or so,
Amid the merry talk would flow;
Or red Bordeaux
From vines that grew where dear Montaigne
Held his domain.
And you remember that dark eye,
None too shy;
In fact, she seemed a bit too free
For y...

Across the street, an humble woman lives;
To her 'tis little fortune ever gives;
Denied the wines of life, it puzzles me
To know how she can laugh so cheerily.
This morn I listened to her softly sing,
And, marvelling what this effect could bring
I looked: 'twas but the presence of a child
Who passed her gate, and looking in, had smiled.
But self-encrusted, I had failed to see
The child had also looked and laughed to me.
My lowly neighbour thought the smile God-sent,
And singing, through the toilsome hours she went.
O! weary singer, I have learned the wrong
Of taking gifts, and giving naught of song;
I thought my blessings scant, my mercies few,
Till I contrasted them with yours, and you;
To-day I counted much, yet wished it more -
While but a child's brig...

There all the golden codgers lay,
There the silver dew,
And the great water sighed for love,
And the wind sighed too.
Man-picker Niamh leant and sighed
By Oisin on the grass;
There sighed amid his choir of love
Tall pythagoras.
plotinus came and looked about,
The salt-flakes on his breast,
And having stretched and yawned awhile
Lay sighing like the rest.
Straddling each a dolphin's back
And steadied by a fin,
Those Innocents re-live their death,
Their wounds open again.
The ecstatic waters laugh because
Their cries are sweet and strange,
Through their ancestral patterns dance,
And the brute dolphins plunge
Until, in some cliff-sheltered bay
Where wades the choir of love
Proffering its sacred laurel crowns,
They pitch their bu...

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...

Bedecked in fashion trim,
With every curl a-quiver;
Or leaping, light of limb,
O'er rivulet and river;
Or skipping o'er the lea
On daffodil and daisy;
Or stretched beneath a tree,
All languishing and lazy;
Whatever be her mood -
Be she demurely prude
Or languishingly lazy -
My lady drives me crazy!
In vain her heart is wooed,
Whatever be her mood!

What profit should I gain
Suppose she loved me dearly?
Her coldness turns my brain
To VERGE of madness merely.
Her kiss - though, Heaven knows,
To dream of it were treason -
Would tend, as I suppose,
To utter loss of reason!
My state is not amiss;
I would not have a kiss
Which, in or out of season,
Might tend to loss of reason:
What profit in such bliss?
A ...

Pale season, watcher in unvexed suspense,
Still priestess of the patient middle day,
Betwixt wild March's humored petulence
And the warm wooing of green kirtled May,
Maid month of sunny peace and sober grey,
Weaver of flowers in sunward glades that ring
With murmur of libation to the spring:

As memory of pain, all past, is peace,
And joy, dream-tasted, hath the deepest cheer,
So art thou sweetest of all months that lease
The twelve short spaces of the flying year.
The bloomless days are dead, and frozen fear
No more for many moons shall vex the earth,
Dreaming of summer and fruit laden mirth.

The grey song-sparrows full of spring have sung
Their clear thin silvery tunes in leafless trees;
The robin hops, and whistles, and among
The silver-tass...

But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
I’ll work then for your friend’s friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
Oh, I’ll content him, but to-morrow, Love!
I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening more than usual, and it seems
As if forgive now should you let me sit
Here by the window with your hand in mine
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly the evening through,
I might get up to-morrow to my work
Cheerfu...

For Anne.

All the loud winds were in the garden wood,
All shadows joyfuller than lissom hounds
Doubled in chasing, all exultant clouds
That ever flung fierce mist and eddying fire
Across heavens deeper than blue polar seas
Fled over the sceptre-spikes of the chestnuts,
Over the speckle of the wych-elms' green.
She shouted; then stood still, hushed and abashed
To hear her voice so shrill in that gay roar,
And suddenly her eyelashes were dimmed,
Caught in tense tears of spiritual joy;
For there were daffodils which sprightly shook
Ten thousand ruffling heads throughout the wood,
And every flower of those delighting flowers
Laughed, nodding to her, till she clapped her hands
Crying 'O daffies, could you only speak!'

But there was more. A jay with...