To a western breeze
A row of golden tulips is nodding.
They flutter their golden wings
In a sudden ecstasy and say:
Something comes to us from beyond,
Out of the sky, beyond the hill
We give it to you.

        *        *        *        *        *

And I walk through rows of jonquils
To a beloved door,
Which you open.
And you stand with the priceless gold of your tulip head
Nodding to me, and saying:
Something comes to me
Out of the mystery of Eternal Beauty -
I give it to you.

        *        *        *        *        *

There is the morning wonder of hyacinth in your eyes,
And the freshness of June iris in your hands,
And the rapture of gardenias in your bosom.
But your voice is the voice of the robin
Singing ...

The sea coast of Bohemia
Is pleasant to the view
When singing larks spring from the grass
To fade into the blue,
And all the hawthorn hedges break
In wreaths of purest snow,
And yellow daffodils are out,
And roses half in blow.

The sea-coast of Bohemia
Is sad as sad can be,
The prince has ta’en our flower of maids
Across the violet sea;
Our Perdita has gone with him,
No more we dance the round
Upon the green in joyous play,
Or wake the tabor’s sound.

The sea-coast of Bohemia
Has many wonders seen,
The shepherd lass wed with a king,
The shepherd with a queen;
But such a wonder as my love
Was never seen before,
It is my joy and sorrow now
To love her evermore.

The sea-coast of Bohemia
Is haunted by a...

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol...

Love had a fever--ne'er could close
    His little eyes till day was breaking;
And wild and strange enough, Heaven knows,
    The things he raved about while waking.

To let him pine so were a sin;--
    One to whom all the world's a debtor--
So Doctor Hymen was called in,
    And Love that night slept rather better.

Next day the case gave further hope yet,
    Tho' still some ugly fever latent;--
"Dose, as before"--a gentle opiate.
    For which old Hymen has a patent.

After a month of daily call,
    So fast the dose went on restoring,
That Love, who first ne'er slept at all,
    Now took, the rogue! to downright snoring.

(To Ellen Terry)

In the lone tent, waiting for victory,
She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,
Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:
The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,
War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry
To her proud soul no common fear can bring:
Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,
Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy.
O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face
Made for the luring and the love of man!
With thee I do forget the toil and stress,
The loveless road that knows no resting place,
Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness,
My freedom, and my life republican!

An everywhere of silver,
With ropes of sand
To keep it from effacing
The track called land.

We are what suns and winds and waters make us;
The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills
Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles.
But where the land is dim from tyranny,
There tiny pleasures occupy the place
Of glories and of duties; as the feet
Of fabled faeries when the sun goes down
Trip o’er the grass where wrestlers strove by day.
Then Justice, call’d the Eternal One above,
Is more inconstant than the buoyant form
That burst into existence from the froth
Of ever-varying ocean: what is best
Then becomes worst; what loveliest, most deform’d.
The heart is hardest in the softest climes,
The passions flourish, the affections die.
O thou vast tablet of these awful truths,
That fillest all the space between the seas,
Spreading from Venice’s des...

I came to you quietly when you were lying
In perfect midnight sleep.
Your dark soft hair was all about your pillow,
So black upon the white.
I could not see your face except the lovely
Curve of the pale cheek;
Your head was bent as though your stirless slumber
Was sea-like heavy and deep.
The wind came gently in at the wide window,
Shaking the candle-light
And shadows on the wall; and there was silence,
Or sound but far and weak.
By the bedside your daytime toys were gathered:
The bright bell-ringing wheel,
Dolls clad in violent yellow and vermilion,
Strings of gay-coloured beads....
But you were far and far from these beside you,
Entranced with other joys
In fresh fields, among other children running:
Your voice, I knew, must peal
Purely a...

TO COLONEL FRANCIS EDWARD YOUNGHUSBAND

    Across the Western World, the Arabian Sea,
    The Hundred Kingdoms and the Rivers Three,
    Beyond the rampart of Himalayan snows,
    And up the road that only Rumour knows,
    Unchecked, old friend, from Devon to Thibet,
    Friendship and Memory dog your footsteps yet.

    Let not the scornful ask me what avails
    So small a pack to follow mighty trails:
    Long since I saw what difference must be
    Between a stream like you, a ditch like me.
    This drains a garden and a homely field
    Which scarce at times a living current yield;
    The other from the high lands of his birth
    Plunges through rocks and spurns the pastoral earth,
    Then settling silent to his deeper course
    Draws in ...

    Journeying through a desert, waste and drear,
        Exhausted and disheartened by his way,
        So hard and parched, unchanged from day to day,
    Saw the lone traveller an oasis near,
    In which a tender flower did appear,
        Endued with beauty and with fragrance sweet,
        Known not to scorching winds nor blighting heat;
    And gazing on it, it imparted cheer.
    The traveller trod the weary sands of Time,
        Entering thy home delightful peace he found;
    Radiant with youthful beauty half divine,
        On him thine angel face with sunbeams crowned
    Smiled, and that artless, beaming smile of thine
        Sped to his soul that with new life did bound.

Listen! If but women were
Half as kind as they are fair
There would be an end to all
Miseries that do appal.

Cloud and wind would fly together
In a dance of sunny weather,
And the happy trees would throw
Gifts to travellers below.

Then the lion, meek and mild,
With the lamb would, side by side,
Couch him friendly, and would be
Innocent of enmity.

Then the Frozen Pole would go,
Shaking off his fields of snow,
To a kinder clime and dance
Warmly with the girls of France.

These; if women only were
Half as kind as they are fair.

    The evening found us whom the day had fled,
    Once more in bitter anger, you and I,
    Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing
    Our anger would not decently let die.
    But dragged between us, shamed and shivering,
    Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard,
    Until we lost the sense of all we said,
    And knew not who first spoke the fatal word.
    It seemed that even every kiss we wrung
    We killed at birth with shuddering and hate,
    As if we feared a thing too passionate.
    However close we clung
    One hour, the next hour found us separate,
    Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue.
    To-night we quarrelled over one small head,
    Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud
    Blown from our stormy kisses and...

    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes;
    You will be a woman set apart,
    You will be so wonderful and wise.
    You will sleep, and when from dreams you start,
    As of one that wakes in Paradise,
    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes.

    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes;
    You will see your dearest ones depart,
    You will hear their quivering good-byes.
    Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart,
    Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice;
    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes.

    There will come a glory in your eyes,
    There will come a peac...

Thro' grief and thro' danger thy smile hath cheered my way,
Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round me lay;
The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burned,
Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turned;
Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free,
And blest even the sorrows that made me more dear to thee.

Thy rival was honored, while thou wert wronged and scorned,
Thy crown was of briers, while gold her brows adorned;
She wooed me to temples, while thou lay'st hid in caves,
Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas! were slaves;
Yet cold in the earth, at thy feet, I would rather be,
Than wed what I loved not, or turn one thought from thee.

They slander thee sorely, who say thy vows are frail--
Hadst thou been a false o...