Works

Observe the clasped hands!
Are they hands of farewell or greeting,
Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?
Would it not be well to carve a hand
With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?...

My father who owned the wagon-shop
And grew rich shoeing horses
Sent me to the University of Montreal.
I learned nothing and returned home,
Roaming the fields with Bert Kessler,
Hunting quail and snipe....

The sea coast of Bohemia
Is pleasant to the view
When singing larks spring from the grass
To fade into the blue,
And all the hawthorn hedges break
In wreaths of purest snow,...

I go beyond the commandment.' So be it. Then mine be the blame,
The loss, the lack, the yearning, till life's last sand be run, -
I go beyond the commandment, yet honour stands fast with her claim,...

I stood in Pere-la-Chaise. The putrid city,
Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay,
The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity,
Flashing her bare shame to the summer's day.
...

Life is a journey, and its fairest flowers
Lie in our path beneath pride's trampling feet;
Oh, let us stoop to virtue's humble bowers,
And gather those, which, faded, still are sweet.
...

(After Martial)

Bernard, if to you and me
Fortune all at once should give
Years to spend secure and free,
With the choice of how to live,
Tell me, what should we proclaim...

He lives but half who never stood
By the grave of one held dear,
And out of the deep, dark loneliness
Of a heart bereaved and comfortless,
From sorrow's crystal plentitude,
Feeling his loss severe,...

The leaf that ripens only in the sun
Is dull and shrivelled ere its race is run.
The leaf that makes a carnival of death
Must tremble first before the north wind's breath.
...

Only themselves understand themselves, and the like of themselves,
As Souls only understand Souls.

Beloved, those who moan of love's brief day
Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,
Who know too well this passion's tenderness
To deem that it shall lightly pass away,...

All perfect things are saddening in effect.
The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes,
The matchless tinting on the royal rose
Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked,...

An artist skilled beyond the sons of men
With pleasure scanned the pictures on the wall,
Rare works of art, each one pronounced a gem,
The product of his hand, both great and small;...

Hollow rang the house when I knocked on the door,
And I lingered on the threshold with my hand
Upraised to knock and knock once more:
Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor,...

Perhaps the sky once was shadows,
the moon lisped 'mongst April's song.
Now, those warm lips ease
departing sorrow
like pressed flowers
emptied from hallowed ground.

Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?
But I could never sell.
If you would like to borrow
Until the daffodil

Unties her yellow bonnet
Beneath the village door,
Until the bees, from clover rows...

Well and wisely said the Greek,
Be thou faithful, but not fond;
To the altar's foot thy fellow seek,--
The Furies wait beyond.

In a vision Liberty stood
By the childless charm-stricken bed
Where, barren of glory and good,
Knowing nought if she would not or would,
England slept with her dead.
...

The deserted streets flow in gleaming light
Through my dull head. And hurt me.
I clearly feel that I shall soon slip away -
Thorny roses of my skin, don't prick like that....

What am I, and what is he
Who can cull and tear a heart,
As one might a rose for sport
In its royalty?

What am I, that he has made
All this love a bitter foam,
Blown about a life of loam...