Works

Stout Romulus, Romes founder, and first King,
Whom vestal Rhea to the world did bring;
His Father was not Mars as some devis'd,
But 'mulus in Armour all disguiz'd:...

By Rome's dim relics there walks a man,
Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;
I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;
Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.
...

The Roman Road runs straight and bare
As the pale parting-line in hair
Across the heath. And thoughtful men
Contrast its days of Now and Then,
And delve, and measure, and compare;
...

The sun goes down, and with him takes
The coarseness of my poor attire;
The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame
Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.

Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race;...

In a kingdom of mist and moonlight,
Or ever the world was known,
Past leagues of unsailed water,
There reigned a king with a daughter
That shone like a starry stone.
...

IX

'My lips do need thy breath,
My lips do need thy smile,
And my pallid eyne, that light in thine
Which met the stars erewhile:
Yet go with light and life
If that thou lovest one...

I

When the clouds hide the sun away
The tall slate roof is dull and grey,
And when the rain adown it streams
'Tis polished lead with pale-blue gleams.

When the clouds vanish and the rain...

Through that window, all else being extinct
Except itself and me, I saw the struggle
Of darkness against darkness. Within the room
It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw...

I saw a room where many feet were dancing.
The ceiling and the wall were mirrors glancing
Both flames of candles and the heaven's light,
Though windows there were none for air or flight....

Deep, Love, yea, very deep.
And in the dark exiled,
I have no sense of light but still to creep
And know the breast, but not the eyes. Thy child
Saw ne'er his mother near, nor if she smiled;...

In that building, long and low,
With its windows all a-row,
Like the port-holes of a hulk,
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin
Dropping, each a hempen bulk.
...

Not on the lute, nor harp of many strings
Shall all men praise the Master of all song.
Our life is brief, one saith, and art is long;
And skilled must be the laureates of kings....

One asked me where the roses grew:
I bade him not go seek,
But forwith bade my Julia show
A bud in either cheek.

Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art;
But some tell their days by the flow of their tears,
And their lives by the moans of their heart.

The dials of earth may show...

Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse
Boldly defies all mean and partial views;
With honest freedom plays the critic's part,
And praises, as she censures, from the heart.
...

Beneath my chamber window
Pierrot was singing, singing;
I heard his lute the whole night thru
Until the east was red.
Alas, alas Pierrot,
I had no rose for flinging...

You have forgot: it once was red
With life, this rose, to which you said,--
When, there in happy days gone by,
You plucked it, on my breast to lie,--
"Sleep there, O rose! how sweet a bed...

We love the land when the world goes round,
And deep, deep down in her thorny ground,
Where nobody comes, and nobody knows,
We love the Rose. Oh! we love the Rose.
...

The last days of August.... Autumn was already at hand.

The sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.
...

I took the love you gave, Ah, carelessly,
Counting it only as a rose to wear
A little moment on my heart no more,
So many roses had I worn before,
So lightly that I scarce believed them there.
...