I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too --
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

To all that breathe the air of heaven,
Some boon of strength has Nature given.
In forming the majestic bull,
She fenced with wreathed horns his skull;
A hoof of strength she lent the steed,
And winged the timorous hare with speed.
She gave the lion fangs of terror,
And, o'er the ocean's crystal mirror,
Taught the unnumbered scaly throng
To trace their liquid path along;
While for the umbrage of the grove,
She plumed the warbling world of love.

To man she gave, in that proud hour,
The boon of intellectual power.
Then, what, oh woman, what, for thee,
Was left in Nature's treasury?
She gave thee beauty--mightier far
Than all the pomp and power of war.
Nor steel, nor fire itself hath power
Like woman, in her conquering hour.
Be thou but f...

    When I see truth, do I seek truth
    Only that I may things denote,
    And, rich by striving, deck my youth
    As with a vain unusual coat?

    Or seek I truth for other ends:
    That she in other hearts may stir,
    That even my most familiar friends
    May turn from me to look on her?

    So I this day myself was asking;
    Out of the window skies were blue
    And Thames was in the sunlight basking;
    My thoughts coiled inwards like a screw.

    I watched them anxious for a while;
    Then quietly, as I did watch,
    Spread in my soul a sudden smile:
    I knew that no firm thing they'd catch.

    And I remembered if I leapt
    Upon the bosom of the wind
    It would sustain me; question slept;
    I fel...

Only in August my heart was aflame,
    Catching the scent of your Wind-stirred hair,
Now, though you spread it to soften my sleep
    Through the night, I should hardly care.

Only last August I drank that water
    Because it had chanced to cool your hands;
When love is over, how little of love
    Even the lover understands!

Spirit girl to whom 'twas given
To revisit scenes of pain,
From the hell I thought was Heaven
You have lifted me again;
Through the world that I inherit,
Where I loved her ere she died,
I am walking with the spirit
Of a dead girl by my side.

Through my old possessions only
For a very little while,
And they say that I am lonely,
And they pity, but I smile:
For the brighter side has won me
By the calmness that it brings,
And the peace that is upon me
Does not come of earthly things.

Spirit girl, the good is in me,
But the flesh you know is weak,
And with no pure soul to win me
I might miss the path I seek;
Lead me by the love you bore me
When you trod the earth with me,
Till the light is clear before me
And my spiri...

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed - a lovely one -
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,
That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode;
Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,
Where
For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.

Often I think of the beautiful town
    That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
    And my youth comes back to me.
        And a verse of a Lapland song
        Is haunting my memory still:
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
    And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hersperides
    Of all my boyish dreams.
        And the burden of that old song,
        It murmurs and whispers still:
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
    A...

She looked like a bird from a cloud
On the clammy lawn,
Moving alone, bare-browed
In the dim of dawn.
The candles alight in the room
For my parting meal
Made all things withoutdoors loom
Strange, ghostly, unreal.

The hour itself was a ghost,
And it seemed to me then
As of chances the chance furthermost
I should see her again.
I beheld not where all was so fleet
That a Plan of the past
Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet
Was in working at last:

No prelude did I there perceive
To a drama at all,
Or foreshadow what fortune might weave
From beginnings so small;
But I rose as if quicked by a spur
I was bound to obey,
And stepped through the casement to her
Still alone in the gray.

"I am leaving you . ....

O women, kneeling by your altar-rails long hence,
When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,
And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air
And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for all that sin I wove in song,
Till the Attorney for Lost Souls cry her sweet cry,
And.call to my beloved and me: "No longer fly
Amid the hovering, piteouS, penitential throng.

Beyond expression, delicately fine,
Beneath her slender fingers swept the sound
Of 'witching tones, melodious, divine;
Soothing and soft upon the sense they wound,
Join'd with the syrens' music, as it were,
As her sweet voice came mingling on the ear.
Ah, who but knows what woman's voice can do!
To every soul such melody is dear;
Angelic harmony, and beauty too!
Our very hearts melt in the sounds we hear:
The breaks--the pauses--check our pulse's beats.
Enraptur'd memory still each air retains,--
And, as the mind the syren's songs repeats,
Creates sensations sweeter than her strains.

Helen’s tower, here I stand,
Dominant over sea and land.
Son’s love built me, and I hold
Mother’s love in letter’d gold.
Love is in and out of time,
I am mortal stone and lime.
Would my granite girth were strong
As either love, to last as long
I should wear my crown entire
To and thro’ the Doomsday fire,
And be found of angel eyes
In earth’s recurring Paradise.

I drink fresh nourishment, new blood

From out this world more free;
The Nature is so kind and good

That to her breast clasps me!
The billows toss our bark on high,

And with our oars keep time,
While cloudy mountains tow'rd the sky

Before our progress climb.

Say, mine eye, why sink'st thou down?
Golden visions, are ye flown?

Hence, thou dream, tho' golden-twin'd;

Here, too, love and life I find.

Over the waters are blinking

Many a thousand fair star;
Gentle mists are drinking

Round the horizon afar.
Round the shady creek lightly

Morning zephyrs awake,
And the ripen'd fruit brightly

Mirrors itself in the lake.

In the first rare spring of song,
In my heart's young hours,
In my youth 't was thus I sang,
Choosing 'mid the flowers: - 

"Fair the Dandelion is,
But for me too lowly;
And the winsome Violet
Is, forsooth, too holy.
'But the Touchmenot?' Go to!
What! a face that's speckled
Like a common milking-maid's,
Whom the sun hath freckled.
Then the Wild-Rose is a flirt;
And the trillium Lily,
In her spotless gown, 's a prude,
Sanctified and silly.
By her cap the Columbine,
To my mind, 's too merry;
Gossips, I would sooner wed
Some plebeian Berry.
And the shy Anemone -
Well, her face shows sorrow;
Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day,
Dead and gone to-morrow.
Then that bold-eyed, buxom wench,
Big and blond and lazy, -<...