I Fear thy kisses, gentle maiden;
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burden thine.
I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;
Thou needest not fear mine;
Innocent is the heart’s devotion
With which I worship thine.
The Fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle:—
Why not I with thine?
See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;...
Serenade
I Arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me—who knows how?—
To thy chamber-window, sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent...
THE Sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon’s transparent light:
The breath of the moist air is light
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,—
The winds’, the birds’, the ocean-floods’,—
The City’s voice itself...
O World! O Life! O Time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more,—O nevermore!
Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more...
From “Queen Mab”
IF solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean’s echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there
Until the sun’s broad orb
Seemed resting on the burnished wave,
Thou must have marked the lines
Of purple gold that motionless
Hung o’er the sinking sphere:
Thou must have marked the billowy...
Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,—
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought;
Blind with thine hair the eyes of...
From “Queen Mab”
HOW beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening’s ear
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven’s ebon vault,
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon’s unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To...
I.
o Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark, wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each...
I Bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of...
