Not drowsihood and dreams and mere idless,
Nor yet the blessedness of strength regained,
Alone are in what men call sleep. The past,
My unsuspected soul, my parents’ voice,
The generations of my forbears, yea,
The very will of God himself are there
And potent-working: so that many a doubt
Is wiped away at daylight, many a soil
...
-
-
’t is the blithest, bonniest weather for a bird to flirt a feather,
For a bird to trill and warble, all his wee red breast a-swell.
I ’ve a secret. You may listen till your blue eyes dance and glisten,
Little maiden, but I ’ll never, never, never, never tell.You ’ll find no more wary piper, till the strawberries wax riper
In December than in... -
What will you give to a barefoot lass,
Morning with breath like wine?
Wade, bare feet! In my wide morass
Starry marigolds shine.Alms, sweet Noon, for a barefoot lass,
With her laughing looks aglow!
Run, bare feet! In my fragrant grass
Golden buttercups blow.Gift, a gift for a barefoot lass,
O twilight hour... -
What fragrant-footed comer
Is stepping o’er my head?
Behold, my queen! the Summer!
Who deems her warriors dead.
Now rise, ye knights of many fights,
From out your sleep profound!
Make sharp your spears, my gallant peers,
And prick the frozen ground.Before the White Host harm her,
We ’ll hurry to her aid;... -
Headless, without an arm, a figure leans
By something vaguely Greek,—a fount, an urn;
Dim stairs climb past her where one’s thoughts discern
A temple or a palace. Some great queen’s
Daughter art thou? or humbly one of those
Who serve a queen? Is this the sacred thing
That holds thy child, thy husband, or thy king?
Or lightly-laughing... -
Calm death, God of crossed hands and passionless eyes,
Thou God that never heedest gift nor prayer,
Men blindly call thee cruel, unaware
That everything is dearer since it dies.
Worn by the chain of years, without surprise,
The wise man welcomes thee, and leaves the glare
Of noisy sunshine gladly, and his share
He chose not in mad life... -
In the coiled shell sounds Ocean’s distant roar,
Oft to our listening hearts come heavenly strains;—
Men say, “That was the blood in our own veins,
And this,—but the echo of our hope; no more.”
And yet, the murmuring sea exists, which bore
That frail creation o’er its watery plains;
And on Time’s sands full many a shell remains
Tossed by... -
In the groined alcoves of an ancient tower
Amid a wealth of treasured tomes I found
A little book, in choicest vellum bound:
Therein a romance of such magic power
It held me rapt through many a trancëd hour;
And then, the threads of interest all unwound,
Abruptly closed. I searched that palace round,
And for its mate still earth’s... -
Divinely shapen cup, thy lip
Unto me seemeth thus to speak:
“Behold in me the workmanship,
The grace and cunning of a Greek!“Long ages since he mixed the clay,
Whose sense of symmetry was such,
The labor of a single day
Immortal grew beneath his touch.“For dreaming while his fingers went
Around this slender... -
Go, rose, and in her golden hair
You shall forget the garden soon;
The sunshine is a captive there
And crowns her with a constant noon.And when your spicy odor goes,
And fades the beauty of your bloom,
Think what a lovely hand, O Rose,
Shall place your body in the tomb!