Works

A ship that bears much sail, and little ballast, is easily overset; and that man, whose head hath great abilities, and his heart little or no grace, is in danger of foundering....

After the ball last night, when I came home
I stood before my mirror, and took note
Of all that men call beautiful. Delight,
Keen sweet delight, possessed me, when I saw...

I was so proud of you last night, dear girl,
While man with man was striving for your smile.
You never lost your head, nor once dropped down
From your high place
As queen in that gay whirl.
...

I
i(Ancestral Houses)
Surely among a rich man s flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,...

Woe, woe is me! for whither can I fly?
Where hide me from Mathesis' fearful eye?
Where'er I turn the Goddess haunts my path,
Like grim Megoera in revengeful wrath:
In accents wild, that would awake the dead,...

'Tis May morning,
All-adorning,
No cloud warning
Of rain to-day.
Where shall I go to,
Go to, go to? -
Can I say No to
Lyonnesse-way?

Well what reason
Now at this season...

Forget thine anguish,
Vexed heart, again.
Why shouldst thou languish,
With earthly pain?
The husk shall slumber,
Bedded in clay
Silent and sombre,
Oblivion's prey!
But, Spirit immortal,...

They shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;...

If men should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney,
The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold,
Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,...

How did Medusa do her hair?
The question fills me with despair.
It must have caused her sore distress
That head of curling snakes to dress.
Whenever after endless toil
She coaxed it finally to coil,...

As drear and barren as the glooms of Death,
It lies, a windless land of livid dawns,
Nude to a desolate firmament, with hills
That seem the fleshless earth's outjutting ribs,...

The little pansies by the road have turned
Away their purple faces and their gold,
And evening has taken all the bees from the thyme,
And all the scent is shed away by the cold.
...

I.

When from the tower, like some sweet flower,
The bell drops petals of the hour,
That says the world is homing,
My heart puts off its garb of care
And clothes itself in gold and vair,...

As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all...

I

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,...

A tranquil bar
Of rosy twilight under dusk's first star.

A glimmering sound
Of whispering waters over grassy ground.

A sun-sweet smell
Of fresh-reaped hay from dewy field and dell.
...

Through ferns and moss the path wound to
A hollow where the touchmenots
Swung horns of honey filled with dew;
And where like foot-prints violets blue
And bluets made sweet sapphire blots,...

Winter in the world it is,
Round about the unhoped kiss
Whose dream I long have sorrowed o'er;
Round about the longing sore,
That the touch of thee shall turn
Into joy too deep to burn.
...

I thank you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice;
Virtue should always be the first, - I 'm only SECOND VICE -
(A vice is something with a screw that's made to hold its jaw...

I

He was the Chairman of the Guild
Of Early Pleiocene Patriarchs;
He was chief Mentor of the Lodge
Of the Oracular Oligarchs;
He was the Lord High Autocrat
And Vizier of the Sons of Light,...