Works

There is the ruined water-mill
With its rotten wheel, that stands as still
As its image that sleeps in the glassy pool
Where the water snake coils dim and cool
In the flaky light of the setting sun...

I'll weep and sigh when e'er she wills
To frown--and when she deigns to smile
It will be cure for all my ills,
And, foolish still, I'll laugh the while;
But till that comes, I'll bless the rules...

No, I have no capacity for life.
I could be considered foolish -
Today I am not going to the restaurant.
I am after all this time weary of the waiters,
Who scornfully bring us, with their smug grimaces,...

The Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.
...

This evening the Moon dreams more languidly,
Like a beauty who on mounded cushions rests,
And with her light hand fondles lingeringly,
Before she sleeps, the slope of her sweet breasts.
...

One morning (raw it was and wet
A foggy day in winter time)
A Woman on the road I met,
Not old, though something past her prime:
Majestic in her person, tall and straight;...

"O whence do you come,
Figure in the night-fog that chills me numb?"

"I come to you across from my house up there,
And I don't mind the brine-mist clinging to me
That blows from the quay,...

Since green earth is awake
Let us now pastime take,
Not serving wantonness
Too well, nor niggardness,
Which monks of men would make.

But clothed like earth in green,...

I know a man
With face of tan,
But who is ever kind;
Whom girls and boys
Leaves games and toys
Each eventide to find.

When day grows dim,
They watch for him,...

An aged satyr sought
Around my Muse to pass,
Attempting to pay court,
And eyed her fondly through his glass.

By Phoebus' golden torch,
By Luna's pallid light,
Around her temple's porch...

Whether I was myself, or else did see
Out of myself that glorious hierarchy;
Or whether those, in orders rare, or these
Made up one state of sixty Venuses;
Or whether fairies, syrens, nymphs they were,...

In what pearl-paven mossy cave
By what green sea
Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave,
In realms more full of splendid mystery
Than that strong northern flood whence came...

Cyrus Cambyses Son of Persia King,
Whom Lady Mandana did to him bring,
She daughter unto great Astiages,
He in descent the seventh from Arbaces.
Cambyses was of Achemenes race,...

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit,
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit....

Enter JANUS.

Janus. Chronos, Chronos, mend thy pace;
An hundred times the rolling sun
Around the radiant belt has run
In his revolving race.
Behold, behold the goal in sight,...

Warrior of the youthful brow,
Eager heart and eagle eye!
Pants thy soul for battle now?
Burns thy glance with victory?
Dost thou dream of conflicts done,
Perils past and trophies won?...

'Tommy' you was when it began,
But now that it is o'er
You shall be called The Service Man
'Enceforward, evermore.

Batt'ry, brigade, flank, centre, van,
Defaulter, Army-corps,...

As, in the lonely night,
Above the silvered fields and streams
Where zephyr gently blows,
And myriad objects vague,
Illusions, that deceive,
Their distant shadows weave
Amid the silent rills,...

City of swarming, city full of dreams
Where ghosts in daylight tug the stroller's sleeve!
Mysteries everywhere run like the sap
That fills this great colossus' conduits.
...

O swarming city, city full of dreams,
Where in a full day the spectre walks and speaks;
Mighty colossus, in your narrow veins
My story flows as flows the rising sap.
...