Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes,
Which, star-like, sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud, that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours, yet free;
Be you not proud of that rich hair
Which wantons with the love-sick air;
When as that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone,
When all your world of beauty's gone.

    Passer-By,
    To love is to find your own soul
    Through the soul of the beloved one.
    When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul
    Then you have lost your soul.
    It is written: "l have a friend,
    But my sorrow has no friend."
    Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father,
    Trying to get myself back,
    And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self.
    But there was my father with his sorrows,
    Sitting under the cedar tree,
    A picture that sank into my heart at last
    Bringing infinite repose.
    Oh, ye souls who have made life
    Fragrant and white as tube roses
    From earth's dark soil,
    Eternal peace!

What time I left my native land,
And bade farewell to my true love,
She laid a flower in my hand
As azure as the sky above.
"Speed thee well! Speed well!"
She softly whispered, "Speed well!
This flower blue
Be token true
Of my true heart's true love for you!"

Its tender hue is bright and pure,
As heav'n through summer clouds doth show,
A pledge though clouds thy way obscure,
It shall not be for ever so.
"Speed thee well! Speed well!"
She softly whisper'd, "Speed well!
This flower blue
Be token true
Of my true heart's true love for you!"

And as I toil through help and harm,
And whilst on alien shores I dwell,
I wear this flower as a charm,
My heart repeats that tender spell:
"Speed thee well! Speed well!"
It softly...

Sore in need was I of a faithful friend,
    And it seemed to me that life
Had come to its much desired end -
    Just then God gave me a wife.

I had seen the beauty of fairy things,
    And seen the women walk;
I had heard the voice of the seven sins
    And all the wonderful talk.

Ah, the promising earth that seems so kind,
    And the comrades with outstretched hand -
But did you ever stand alone
    In a black, forsaken land?
Then the wonderful things that God can do
    One comes to understand:

How He turns the desert dust to a dream,
    And the lonely wind to a friend,
And makes a bright beginning
    Of what had seemed the end:
'Twas in such an hour God placed in mine
    The moonbeam hand of a friend.

        Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring
            So long delays her flowers to bear;
        Why warbling birds forget to sing,
            And winter storms invert the year:
        Chloris is gone, and fate provides
        To make it Spring, where she resides.

        Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
            She cast not back a pitying eye;
        But left her lover in despair,
            To sigh, to languish, and to die:
        Ah, how can those fair eyes endure
        To give the wounds they will not cure?

        Great God of love, why hast thou made
            A face that can all hearts command,
        That all religions can evade,
            And change the laws of every land?
        Where thou hadst placed such power bef...

1.
When passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last,
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

2.
It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest - and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been,

3.
After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear;
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea, but two, which move
And form all others, life and love.

The crown of stars is broken in parts,
Its jewels brighter than the day,
Have one by one been stolen away
To shine in other homes and hearts.
--[Hanging of the Crane.]


Each poem is a star that shines
    Within your crown of light;
Each jeweled thought--a fadeless gem
    That dims the stars of night.

A flower here and there, so sweet,
    Its fragrance fills the earth,
Is woven in among the gems
    Of proud, immortal birth.

Each wee Forget-me-not hath eyes
    As blue as yonder skies,
To tell the world each song of thine
    Is one that never dies.

The purple pansies stained with gold,
    The roses royal red,
In softened splendor shadow forth
    The truths thy life hath said.

Oh would the earth w...

All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes,
No lovely thing but echoes some of thee,
Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes,
Sighing as fair as thou thyself to be;
Therefore, be not disquieted that I
On other forms turn oft my wandering gaze,
Nor deem it anywise disloyalty:
Nay! 'tis the pious fervour of my eye,
That seeks thy face in every other face.
As in the mirrored salon of a queen,
Flashes from glass to glass, as she walks by,
In sweet reiteration still - the queen!
So is the world for thee to walk in, sweet;
But to see thee is all things to have seen.
And, as the moon in every crystal lake,
Walking the heaven with little silver feet,
Sees each bright copy her reflection take,
And every dew-drop holds its little glass,
To catch her loveliness as ...

Love maketh its own summer time,
'Tis June, Love, when we are together,
And little I care for the frost in the air,
For the heart makes its own summer weather.

Love maketh its own winter time,
And though the hills blossom with heather,
If you are not near, 'tis December, my dear,
For the heart makes its own winter weather.

Love thy neighbor, to Christ be leal!
Crush him never with iron-heel,
Though in the dust he's lying!
All the living responsive await
Love with power to recreate,
Needing alone the trying.

I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me,
Our mutual flame is like th' affinity
That doth exist between two simple bodies:
I am Potassium to thine Oxygen.
'Tis little that the holy marriage vow
Shall shortly make us one. That unity
Is, after all, but metaphysical.
Oh, would that I, my Mary, were an acid,
A living acid; thou an alkali
Endow'd with human sense, that, brought together,
We both might coalesce into one salt,
One homogeneous crystal. Oh, that thou
Wert Carbon, and myself were Hydrogen;
We would unite to form olefiant gas,
Or common coal, or naphtha, would to heaven
That I were Phosphorus, and thou wert Lime!
And we of Lime composed a Phosphuret.
I'd be content to be Sulphuric Acid,
So that thou might be Soda. In that case
We should be Gl...

    There shall be a song for both of us that day
    Though fools say you have long outlived your songs,
    And when, perhaps, because your hair is grey,
    You go unsung, to whom all praise belongs,
    And no men kiss your hands - your fragile hands
    Folded like empty shells on sea-spurned sands.
    And you that were dawn whereat men shouted once
    Are sunset now, with but one worshipper,
    Then to your twilight heart this song shall be
    Sweeter than those that did your youth announce
    For your brave beautiful spirit is lovelier
    Than once your lovely body was to me.
    Your folded hands and your shut eyelids stir
    A passion that Time has crowned with sanctity.
    Young fools shall wonder why, your youth being over,
    You are so sung st...

You wonder at my bright round eyes, my lips
Pressed tightly like a venomous rosette.
Thus do me honor by so much, fond wretch,
And praise my Persian beauty, dulcet voice.
But oh you know me, read me, passion blinds
Your vision not at all, and you have passion
For me and what I am. How can you be so?
Hold me so bear-like, take my lips with yours,
Bury your face in these my russet tresses,
And yet not lose your vision? So I love you,
And fear you too. How idle to deny it
To you who know I fear you.

    Here am I
Who answer you what e'er you choose to ask.
You stride about my rooms and open books,
And say when did he give you this? You pick
His photograph from mantels, dressers, drawl
Out of ironic strength, and smile the while:
"You did not love ...

Vivid with love, eager for greater beauty
Out of the night we come
Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.
A metal door slides open,
And the lift receives us.
Swiftly, with sharp unswerving flight
The car shoots upward,
And the air, swirling and angry,
Howls like a hundred devils.
Past the maze of trim bronze doors,
Steadily we ascend.
I cling to you
Conscious of the chasm under us,
And a terrible whirring deafens my ears.

The flight is ended.

We pass thru a door leading onto the ledge,
Wind, night and space
Oh terrible height
Why have we sought you?
Oh bitter wind with icy invisible wings
Why do you beat us?
Why would you bear us away?
We look thru the miles of air,
The cold blue miles between us and the city,

A MASQUE PRESENTED AT WILTON HOUSE,

JULY 28, 1909


    Scene.    A LAWN IN THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE'S ARCADIA

    Enter FLORA, Lady of Summer, with her maidens, PHYLLIS
        and AMARYLLIS.    She takes her seat upon a bank,
        playing with a basket of freshly gathered flowers, one
        of which she presently holds up in her hand.


    FLORA.    Ah! how I love a rose!    But come, my girls,
        Here's for your task: to-day you, Amaryllis,
        Shall take the white, and, Phyllis, you the red.
        Hold out your kirtles for them.    White, red, white,
        Red, red, and white again. . . .
        Wonder you not
        How the same sun can breed such different beauties?
                [She divides ...