Works

I

"O Lord, why grievest Thou? -
Since Life has ceased to be
Upon this globe, now cold
As lunar land and sea,
And humankind, and fowl, and fur
Are gone eternally,...

We who are lovers sit by the fire,
Cradled warm 'twixt thought and will,
Sit and drowse like sleeping dogs
In the equipoise of all desire,
Sit and listen to the still...

RESIGNATION

There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!
...

I.

How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!

II....

Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom or understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
A great grey chaos, a land half made,...

By the hearth-stone
She sits alone,
The long night bearing:
With eyes that gleam
Into the dream
Of the firelight staring.

Low and more low
The dying glow
Burns in the embers;...

"To Be Filed For Reference", Plain Tales From the Hills



By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,...

Call him not heretic whose works attest
His faith in goodness by no creed confessed.
Whatever in love's name is truly done
To free the bound and lift the fallen one
Is done to Christ. Whoso in deed and word...

The waves are dashing on the shore,
With wild, glad joy, I stand and view them;
And, as they break with sullen roar,
My heart responds with gladness, to them.

They've pow'r to thrill the human soul,...

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow, and silver gleam,
With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;
I am one with the twilight's dream....

To Walter Theodore Watts.


'We are what suns and winds and waters make us.''Landor.

Sea, wind, and sun, with light and sound and breath
The spirit of man fulfilling'these create...

Her cheek was wet with North Sea spray,
We walked where tide and shingle meet;
The long waves rolled from far away
To purr in ripples at our feet.
And as we walked it seemed to me...

Flow on, ye lays so loved, so fair,

On to Oblivion's ocean flow!
May no rapt boy recall you e'er,

No maiden in her beauty's glow!

My love alone was then your theme,
...

(Two who became a story)



By the Runic Stone
They sat, where the grass sloped down,
And chattered, he white-hatted, she in brown,
Pink-faced, breeze-blown.

Rapt there alone...

The caves of the sea have been troubled to-day
With the water which whitens, and widens, and fills;
And a boat with our brother was driven away
By a wind that came down from the tops of the hills....

I am longing to dwell by the sea,
And dip in the surf every day,
And - height of subaqueous glee -
With the sharks and the porpoises play.

To novelty ever inclined -...

Beside an ebbing northern sea
While stars awaken one by one,
We walk together, I and he.

He woos me with an easy grace
That proves him only half sincere;
A light smile flickers on his face.
...

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse...

Why does the sea moan evermore?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan.
It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.
...

Oh lapping waves!--oh gnawing waves!--
That rest not day nor night,--
I hear ye when the light
Is dim and awful in your hollow caves.--

All day the winds were out, and rode...