Works

Oh that men would praise the Lord
For his goodness unto men!
Forth he sends his saving word,
--Oh that men would praise the Lord!--
And from shades of death abhorred
Lifts them up to light again:...

After the melting of the snow
Divines depart and April comes;
Examinations nearer grow
After the melting of the snow;
The grinder wears a face of woe,
The waster smokes and twirls his thumbs;...

When the heart is a cup
In the body low lying,
And wine, drop by drop
Falls into that cup

From somewhere high up,
It is good to be dying
With the heart for a cup
In the body low lying.

Before a lonely shrine
Of foam-born Aphrodite,
Ungarlanded of vine,
Undyed by dripping wine,
I brought green bay to twine,
And prayed to her, almighty,
And lo, the prayer of mine...

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]

O well for him who lives at ease
With garnered gold in wide domain,
Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,
The crashing down of forest trees.
...

Tristram

Is she not come? The messenger was sure.
Prop me upon the pillows once again
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.
Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!...

I

TRISTRAM

Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure,
Prop me upon the pillows once again,
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure....

Night and vast caverns of rock and of iron;
Voices like water, and voices like wind;
Horror and tempests of hail that environ
Shapes and the shadows of two who have sinned.
...

''As the dawn loves the sunlight I love thee;'
As men that shall be swallowed of the sea
Love the sea's lovely beauty; as the night
That wanes before it loves the young sweet light,...

Out of the night arose the second day,
And saw the ship's bows break the shoreward spray.
As the sun's boat of gold and fire began
To sail the sea of heaven unsailed of man,...

Love, that is first and last of all things made,
The light that has the living world for shade,
The spirit that for temporal veil has on
The souls of all men woven in unison,...

About the middle music of the spring
Came from the castled shore of Ireland's king
A fair ship stoutly sailing, eastward bound
And south by Wales and all its wonders round...

Spring watched her last moon burn and fade with May
While the days deepened toward a bridal day.
And on her snowbright hand the ring was set
While in the maiden's ear the song's word yet...

Fate, that was born ere spirit and flesh were made,
The fire that fills man's life with light and shade;
The power beyond all godhead which puts on
All forms of multitudinous unison,...

Enough of ease, O Love, enough of light,
Enough of rest before the shadow of night.
Strong Love, whom death finds feebler; kingly Love,
Whom time discrowns in season, seeing thy dove...

But all that year in Brittany forlorn,
More sick at heart with wrath than fear of scorn
And less in love with love than grief, and less
With grief than pride of spirit and bitterness,...

A little time, O Love, a little light,
A little hour for ease before the night.
Sweet Love, that art so bitter; foolish Love,
Whom wise men know for wiser, and thy dove...

But that same night in Cornwall oversea
Couched at Queen Iseult's hand, against her knee,
With keen kind eyes that read her whole heart's pain
Fast at wide watch lay Tristram's hound Hodain,...

Triumph may be of several kinds.
There 's triumph in the room
When that old imperator, Death,
By faith is overcome.

There 's triumph of the finer mind
When truth, affronted long,...

The sky, grown dull through many waiting days,
Flashed into crimson with the sunrise charm,
So all my love, aroused to vague alarm,
Flushed into fire and burned with eager blaze....