The dead SINGER
A POET’S soul has sung its way to God;
Has loosed its luminous wings from earthly thongs,
And soared to join the imperishable throngs
Whose feet the immaculate valleys long have trod.
For him, the recompense; for us, the rod;
And we to whom regretfulness belongs
Crown our dead singer with his own sweet songs,
And...
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In hades
then saw I, with gray eyes fulfilled of rest,
And lulling voice, a woman sweet, and she,—
“Bear thou my word: I am of all most blest;
Nor marvel that I am Eurydice.
I stood and watched those slow feet go from me
Farther and farther; in the light afar,
All clear the figure grew—then suddenly
Into my dark his face flashed... -
Enamoured architect OF AIRY RHYME
ENAMOURED architect of airy rhyme,
Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says:
Good souls, but innocent of dreamers’ ways,
Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;
Others, beholding how thy turrets climb
’Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days;
But most beware of those who come to... -
An open SECRET
WOULD the lark sing the sweeter if he knew
A thousand hearts hung breathless on his lay?
And if “How fair!” the rose could hear us say,
Would she, her primal fairness to outdo,
Take on a richer scent, a lovelier hue?
Who knows or cares to answer yea or nay?
O tuneful lark! sail, singing, on your way,
Brimmed with... -
Jack and JILL
AH, Jack it was, and with him little Jill,
Of the same age and size, a neighbor’s daughter,
Who on a breezy morning climbed the hill
To fetch down to the house a pail of water.
Jack put his best foot foremost on that day,—
Vaulting ambition we have seen before,—
He stepped too far, of course, and soon he lay
In the... -
I
the sovereigns
they who create rob death of half its stings;
They, from the dim inane and vague opaque
Of nothingness, build with their thought, and make
Enduring entities and beauteous things;
They are the Poets—they give airy wings
To shapes marmorean; or they overtake
The Ideal with the brush, or, soaring, wake
Far in... -
On The DEATH OF A METAPHYSICIAN
UNHAPPY dreamer, who outwinged in flight
The pleasant region of the things I love,
And soared beyond the sunshine, and above
The golden cornfields and the dear and bright
Warmth of the hearth,—blasphemer of delight,
Was your proud bosom not at peace with Jove,
That you sought, thankless for his guarded grove... -
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore,…
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us... -
If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile … her look … her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day.”
For these things in themselves, belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—... -
I Never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
I ring out to the full brown length and say
“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee.
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle tree,
As girls do, any more. It only may
Now shade on...