Works

Because I am mad about women I am mad about the hills," Said that wild old wicked man Who travels where God wills. "Not to die on the straw at home. Those hands to close these eyes, That is all I ask, my dear, From the old man ...

In a waste of yellow sand, on the brow of a dreary hill,
A slight little slip of a rose struggled up to the light,
The seed maybe was sown there by the south wind's idle will,...

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.
...

[1]

If what old story says of Aesop's true,
The oracle of Greece he was,
And more than Areopagus[2] he knew,
With all its wisdom in the laws.
The following tale gives but a sample...

No grief is grown so desperate, but the ill
Is half way cured if the party will.

A song for the willow, the wild weeping willow,
That murmurs a dirge to the rapturous days,
And moans when the kiss of the breeze laden billow
Entangles and dangles among the sad sprays!...

Lush green the grass that grows between
The willows of the bottom-land;
Verged by the careless water, tall and green,
The brown-topped cat-tails stand.

The cows come gently here to browse,...

A willow garland thou did'st send
Perfum'd, last day, to me,
Which did but only this portend -
I was forsook by thee.

Since so it is, I'll tell thee what,
To-morrow thou shalt see...

I am in love with a child dreaming at the window.

Not for her elaborate house
On the banks of Yellow River;

But for a willow-leaf she has let fall
Into the water.
...

There once was a Willow, and he was very old,
And all his leaves fell off from him, and left him in the cold;
But ere the rude winter could buffet him with snow,...

The skies they were ashen and sober,
The streets they were dirty and drear;
It was night in the month of October,
Of my most immemorial year.
Like the skies, I was perfectly sober,...

Deep in the hollow wood he found a way
Winding unto a water, dim and gray,
Grayer and dimmer than the break of day;
By which a wildrose blossomed; flower on flower
Leaning above its image hour on hour,...

When man is punish'd, he is plagued still,
Not for the fault of nature, but of will.

Ah! no, no, it is nothing, surely nothing at all,
Only the wild-going wind round by the garden-wall,
For the dawn just now is breaking, the wind beginning to fall.

Wind, wind! thou art sad, art thou kind?...

Blow harder, wind, and drive
My blood from hands and face back to the heart.
Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs,
Carry the flying dapple of the clouds
Over the grass, over the soft-grained plough,...

(THE TALE)

Cometh the Wind from the garden, fragrant and full of sweet singing--
Under my tree where I sit cometh the Wind to confession.

"Out in the garden abides the Queen of the beautiful Roses--...

A wind is blowing over my soul,
I hear it cry the whole night through,
Is there no peace for me on earth
Except with you?

Alas, the wind has made me wise,
Over my naked soul it blew,...

Of all the sounds despatched abroad,
There's not a charge to me
Like that old measure in the boughs,
That phraseless melody

The wind does, working like a hand
Whose fingers brush the sky,...

Night comes upon the earth; and fearfully
Arise the mighty winds, and sweep along
In the full chorus of their midnight song.
The waste of heavy clouds, that veil the sky,...

The lithe wind races and sings
Over the grasses and wheat -
See the emerald floor as it springs
To the touch of invisible feet!

Ah, later, the fir and the pine
Shall stoop to its weightier tread,...