Works

Dust on the page, from these forgetful years!
I brush it off, to see the fading date
Written in boyish hand; to find through tears
The lad's dear name, inscribed with all the state...

The chime of silver bells; the sweet
Wild rush of fairy wings and feet;
The fluting birds of dawn; the small
And crystal music of the waterfall.
Or piping of some lone and hidden faun;...

Ah, it was he I heard at early dawn,
From the high hilltop and the dew-wet hollow,
While I was yet as tender as a fawn.
Calling me, "Follow!"

And it was he who spoke at sultry noon,...

From yonder hedge, from yonder spray,
He calls me onward and away;
Broad lies the world and fair to see,
The cuckoo calls, is calling me!

I have not seen nor heard of Care,...

(A painting by Whistler.)

A thing of flesh and blood? Not so!
Yet what you are I do not know.
A paper sword? A pasteboard flame?
Ah no, I cannot find the name!
...

Tainted with death? Ah then, the taint is sweet!
As if God took the essences of life
And burned them in a brazier at his feet,
The smoke of them ascending rich and rife...

Vision of light, above triumphal car
Vision of guidance, star of ev'ry star
And throned saint within the great white Rose,
I follow thee: the book at last to close,...

Up to the little grave, with blossoms kept,
They went together; and one hid her face,
And spoke aloud the boy's dear name, and wept.
The other woman stood apart a space....

Wisdom am I when thou art but a fool;
My part the man, when thou hast played the clod;
Hast lost thy garden? When the eve is cool,
Harken!, 'tis I who walk there with thy God!

I thank thee, Life, that though I be
This poor and broken thing to see,
I still can look with pure delight
Upon thy rose, the red, the white.

And though so dark my own demesne,...

Child of the North, within thy Northern eyes
How brood and burn the restless mysteries!
Blooded of Hellas, thy dark brows between,
That spray of antique laurel, how serene!

Roses about my way, and roses still!
0, I must pick and have my very fill!
Red for my heart and white upon my hair
And still I shall have roses and to spare!
My child, I save thee thorns! Dear little friend,...

("Nor does being weary imply that there is any place to rest.")

Yea, by your wants bestead,
You come Myself to know;
For if I be not bread,
Why hunger so?

And if not water I,...

So, then! Wilt use me as a garment? Well,
'Tis man's high impudence to think he may;

But I, who am as old as heav'n and hell,
I am not lightly to be east away.
...

Child, lover, servant, master of Romance,
To you she showed, not splendid of attire,
With gaud and grace, but all to your desire
In lonelier hues of solemn radiance!...

With the old gods thou walkest, 'mid the leaf
And bloom of ancient morning and of light;
Thou die'st with Christ, and with the nailed thief
That dies upon his left hand and his right.
...

At night it is not strange that thou art dead;
I give thee to the stars, the moonlight snow;
But ah, when desolate I lift my head,
And thou art gone at early morning, No!

The falling of a leaf upon thy way,
The flutter of a bird along thy sky,
Thou God, to whom the ages are a day,
Ev'n such, alas! oh, ev'n such am I!

So long the time, O Lord, when I was not....

Ah, love, why love you tears?
What beauty in the rue?
Do you not know the years
Shall bring their griefs to you,
To dew your nightly pillow ere you sleep?
Perchance, hut let me weep!
...

A wild spring upland all this charmed page,
Where, in the early dawn, the maenads rage,
Mad, chaste, and lovely! This, a darker spot
Where lone Antigone bewails her lot....