I had spent the night in the watch-house, My head was the size of three, So I went and asked the chemist To fix up a drink for me; And he brewed it from various bottles With soda and plenty of ice,...
"One drop of ruddy human blood puts more life into the veins of a poem than all the delusive 'aurum potabile' that can be distilled out of the choicest library."--Lowell.
In sixteen hundred and forty-one, The regular yearly galleon, Laden with odorous gums and spice, India cottons and India rice, And the richest silks of far Cathay, Was due at Acapulco Bay. ...
Roses, brier on brier, Like a hedge of fire, Walled it from the world and rolled Crimson 'round it; manifold Blossoms, 'mid which once of old Walked my Heart's Desire.
There was a fair green garden sloping From the south-east side of the mountain-ledge; And the earliest tint of the dawn came groping Down through its paths, from the day's dim edge....
Out of thy door I run to do the thing That calls upon me. Straight the wind of words Whoops from mine ears the sounds of them that sing About their work, "My God, my father-king!" ...
I put by the half-written poem, While the pen, idly trailed in my hand, Writes on, "Had I words to complete it, Who'd read it, or who'd understand?" But the little bare feet on the stairway,...
It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon, And we two dreaming the dusk away, Beneath the drift of a twilight grey, Beneath the drowse of an ending day, And the curve of a golden moon. ...
Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote;...
There's a Legion that never was listed, That carries no colours or crest, But, split in a thousand detachments, Is breaking the road for the rest. Our fathers they left us their blessing,...
"And when I come to die," he said, "Ye shall not lay me out in state, Nor leave your laurels at my head, Nor cause your men of speech orate; No monument your gift shall be,...
Some die too late and some too soon, At early morning, heat of noon, Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, Whom the rich heavens did so endow With eyes of power and Jove's own brow,...