flower of the moon!
Still white is her brow whom we worshiped on earth long ago;
Yea, purer than pearls in deep seas, and more virgin than snow.
The dull years veil their eyes from her shining, and vanish afraid,
Nor profane her with age—the immortal, nor dim her with shade.
It is we are unworthy, we worldlings, to dwell in her ways;
We...
Good-by: nay, do not grieve that it is over—
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.
Grieve not,—it is the law. Love will be flying—
Yea, love and all.
Glad was the living; blessed be the dying!
Let the leaves fall.
A night: mysterious, tender, quiet, deep;
Heavy with flowers; full of life asleep;
Thrilling with insect voices; thick with stars;
No cloud between the dewdrops and red Mars;
The small earth whirling softly on her way,
The moonbeams and the waterfalls at play;
A million million worlds that move in peace,
A million mighty laws that never...
High-lying, sea-blown stretches of green turf,
Wind-bitten close, salt-colored by the sea,
Low curve on curve spread far to the cool sky,
And, curving over them as long they lie,
Beds of wild fleur-de-lys.
Wide-flowing, self-sown, stealing near and far,
Breaking the green like islands in the sea;
Great stretches at your feet,...
The garden beds I wandered by
One bright and cheerful morn,
When I found a new-fledged butterfly,
A-sitting on a thorn,
A black and crimson butterfly,
All doleful and forlorn.
I thought that life could have no sting
To infant butterflies,
So I gazed on this unhappy thing
With wonder and surprise,
While...
There in his room, whene’er the moon looks in,
And silvers now a shell, and now a fin,
And o’er his chart glides like an argosy,
Quiet and old sits he.
Danger! he hath grown homesick for thy smile.
Where hidest thou the while, heart’s boast,
Strange face of beauty sought and lost,
Star-face that lured him out from boyhood’s isle?
I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while.
Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile;
Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all,
Why from me that ’s young should the wild tears fall?
The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams,
They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams;
And yonder ivy fondling the broke...
Good oars, for Arnold’s sake,
By Laleham lightly bound,
And near the bank, O soft,
Darling swan!
Let not the o’erweary wake
Anew from natal ground,
But where he slumbered oft,
Slumber on.
Be less than boat or bird,
The pensive stream along;
No murmur make, nor gleam,
At his side.
Where was it he...
Holy of England! since my light is short
And faint, O rather by the sun anew
Of timeless passion set my dial true,
That with thy saints and thee I may consort,
And, wafted in the cool, enshadowed port
Of poets, seem a little sail long due,
And be as one the call of memory drew
Unto the saddle void since Agincourt!
Not now, for...
Such natural debts of love our Oxford knows,
So many ancient dues undesecrate,
I marvel how the landmark of a hate
For witness unto future time she chose;
How out of her corroborate ranks arose
The three, in great denial only great,
For Art’s enshrining!… Thus, averted straight,
My soul to seek a holier captain goes:
That sweet...
