Works

The gods are dead; but still for me
Lives on in wildwood brook and tree
Each myth, each old divinity.

For me still laughs among the rocks
The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks...

When Beauty and Beauty meet
All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
With soft and drunken laughter;...

I have sought and followed you, drunk with your sacred wine;
Led out by a laughing wind on a tumbling sea,
On crags amid clouds, in cups that allure the bee,
And deep in the gem-lit gloom of the tortuous mine,...

Down in yon summer vale,
Where the rill flows.
Thus said a Nightingale
To his loved Rose:--
"Tho' rich the pleasures
"Of song's sweet measures,
"Vain were its melody,
"Rose, without thee."...

Al cor di zolfo.


A heart of flaming sulphur, flesh of tow,
Bones of dry wood, a soul without a guide
To curb the fiery will, the ruffling pride
Of fierce desires that from the passions flow;...

While roses are so red,
While lilies are so white,
Shall a woman exalt her face
Because it gives delight?
She's not so sweet as a rose,
A lily's straighter than she,
And if she were as red or white...

While roses are so red,
While lilies are so white,
Shall a woman exalt her face
Because it gives delight?
She's not so sweet as a rose,
A lily's straighter than she,
And if she were as red or white...

Methinks there is no greater work in life
Than making beauty. Can the mind conceive
One little corner in celestial realms
Unbeautiful, or dull or commonplace?
Or picture ugly angels, illy clad?...

Se 'l foco alla bellezza.


If but the fire that lightens in thine eyes
Were equal with their beauty, all the snow
And frost of all the world would melt and glow...

My love said she had nought to wear;
Her garments all were old,
And soon her body must go bare
Against the winter's cold.

I took her out into the dawn,
And from the mountain's crest...

The flag is listless, limp. It dances not.
As deep the sea breathes from a gentle breast
As any bride who dreams at love's behest,
And wakes and sighs, then casts with dreams her lot....

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Would that the winds might only blow
As they blew in the golden long ago!
Laden with odors of Orient isles
Where ever and ever the sunshine smiles,
And the bright sands blend with the shady trees,...

Oh, because you never tried
To bow my will or break my pride,
And nothing of the cave-man made
You want to keep me half afraid,
Nor ever with a conquering air
You thought to draw me unaware,...

(PSALM CXVI.)

Because He heard my voice, and answered me,
Because He listened, ah, so patiently,
In those dark days, when sorrowful, alone,
I knelt with tears, and prayed Him for a stone;...

Why did we meet long years of yore?
And why did we strike hands and say
"We will be friends and nothing more";
Why are we musing thus to-day?
Because because was just because,...

Because my faltering feet may fail to dare
The first descendant of the steps of Hell
Give me the Word in time that triumphs there.
I too must pass into the misty hollow...

When she appears the daylight envies her garment,
The wanton daylight envies her garment
To show it to the jealous sun.

And when she walks,
All women tall and tiny...

Because your voice was at my side
I gave him pain,
Because within my hand I held
Your hand again.

There is no word nor any sign
Can make amend,
He is a stranger to me now
Who was my friend.

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;...

Ah, yes; why not? Is one more adventitious born
Than others - shekels richer, honors fuller, and all that -
That he can pass his fellows by with lofty scorn,...