Works

Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,
Waft thy silver cloud webs athwart the summer sea;
Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining
Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me.
...

The eve is still and silent and above the tinted plain
The passing clouds are driving gentle showers of summer rain,
And the scent of hay-strewn meadows and the fresh-besprinkled ground...

The summer webs that float and shine,
The summer dews that fall,
Tho' light they be, this heart of mine
Is lighter still than all.
It tells me every cloud is past
Which lately seemed to lour;...

My ear is full of summer sounds,
Of summer sights my languid eye;
Beyond the dusty village bounds
I loiter in my daily rounds,
And in the noon-time shadows lie.

I hear the wild bee wind his horn,...

A sterner errand to the silken troop
Has quenched the uneasy blush that warmed my cheek;
I am commissioned in my day of joy
To leave my woods and streams and the sweet sloth...

Through all the district's length, where from the shacks
Hang shutters for concealing secret acts,
When shafts of sunlight strike with doubled heat
On towns and fields, on rooftops on the wheat,...

[1]

Rejoicing on their tyrant's wedding-day,
The people drown'd their care in drink;
While from the general joy did Aesop shrink,
And show'd its folly in this way....

The earth is the cup of the sun,
That he filleth at morning with wine,
With the warm, strong wine of his might
From the vintage of gold and of light,
Fills it, and makes it divine.
...

Years has the master been laboring, but always without satisfaction;
To an ingenious race 'twould be in vision conferred.
What they yesterday learned, to-day they fain would be teaching:...

A little marsh-plant, yellow green,
And pricked at lip with tender red.
Tread close, and either way you tread
Some faint black water jets between
Lest you should bruise the curious head.
...

The sun has long been set,
The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and the trees;
There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,...

The sun has set, and the long grass now
Waves dreamily in the evening wind;
And the wild bird has flown from that old gray stone
In some warm nook a couch to find.

In all the lonely landscape round...

The sun is dying; space and room.
Serenity, vast sense of rest,
Lie bosomed in the orange west
Of Orient waters. Hear the boom
Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,
Like funeral guns above a grave.

Speak not - whisper not;
Here bloweth thyme and bergamot;
Softly on the evening hour,
Secret herbs their spices shower.
Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh,
Lean-stalked, purple lavender;...

(Student's Love-song)



Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along....

I drew the letter out, while gleamed
The sloping sun from under a roof
Of cloud whose verge rose visibly.

The burning ball flung rays that seemed
Stretched like a warp without a woof...

"The sun says his prayers," said the fairy,
Or else he would wither and die.
"The sun says his prayers," said the fairy,
"For strength to climb up through the sky.
He leans on invisible angels,...

There late was One within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky,
Genius and death contended. None may know...

How beautiful a new sun is when it rises,
flashing out its greeting, like an explosion!
Happy, whoever hails with sweet emotion
its descent, nobler than a dream, to our eyes!

...

Friends! do you see in yon sunset sky,
That cloud of crimson bright?
Soon will its gorgeous colors die
In coming dim twilight;
E'en now it fadeth ray by ray -
Like it I too shall pass away!
...