What is a sonnet? ’T is the pearly shell
That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously;
It is a little picture painted well.
What is a sonnet? ’T is the tear that fell
From a great poet’s hidden ecstasy;
A two-...
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Take all of me,—I am thine own, heart, soul,
Brain, body,—all; all that I am or dream
Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem
With thy conditions, I ’d fulfil the whole—
Were to fulfil them to be loved of thee.
Oh, love me!—were to love me but a...
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Dear, if you love me, hold me most your friend,
Chosen from out the many who would bear
Your gladness gladly—heavily your care;
Who best can sympathize, best comprehend,
Where others fail; who, breathless to the end,
Follows your tale of joy or of despair...
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Dumb Mother of all music, let me rest
On thy great heart while summer days pass by;
While all the heat up-quivers, let me lie
Close gathered to the fragrance of thy breast.
Let not the pipe of birds from some high nest
Give voice unto a thought of melody,...
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“scorn not the sonnet,” though its strength be sapped,
Nor say malignant its inventor blundered;
The corpse that here in fourteen lines is wrapped
Had otherwise been covered with a hundred.
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Muses, that sing Love’s sensual empirie,
And lovers kindling your enragèd fires
At Cupid’s bonfires burning in the eye,
Blown with the empty breath of vain desires;
You, that prefer the painted cabinet
Before the wealthy jewels it doth store ye,
...
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Now gentle sleep hath closèd up those eyes
Which, waking, kept my boldest thoughts in awe;
And free access unto that sweet lip lies,
From whence I long the rosy breath to draw.
Methinks no wrong it were, if I should steal
From those two melting rubies one...
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From “Fair Virtue”
SHALL I, wasting in despair,
Die, because a woman ’s Fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care,
’Cause another’s rosy are?
Be She fairer than the Day,
Or the flowery meads in May!
If She be not so to me,
What care...
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Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human...
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Cyriack, this three years’ day, these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot:
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or stars, throughout the year,
Or man or woman, yet...
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