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You are the first wild violet of the year;
Young grass you are, and apple-bloom, and spray
Of honeysuckle; you are dawn of day.
And the first snow-fall! It is you I hear...

Light through a little veil is all thy trace
Of halo, blessed Child!
The sorrow of the world is in thy face,
fair, undefiled!
dear and undefiled!

The kneeling boy, with pretty lips apart,...

Yes, Lord, I know! The child is thine
And in thy house he shall grow up.
Nor know the lash of life, nor cup
Of trembling, as if child of mine.

But ah, forgive me!, is he warm?...

This is your cup, the cup assigned to you
From the beginning. Yea, my child, I know

How much of that dark drink is your own, brew
Of fault and passion. Ages long ago,
...

When, wild and spent, I fly before
Some steadfast Fate, serene, malign,
Let me not think, Lord, I implore
Those dark and awful eyes are thine!

Oh, when the dogs of life are loose,...

The laurel withers on your brow,
victor, weary of the race!
And you, who sit in mighty place,
How heavy is your scepter now!

Flushed with the kiss your lips have known,...

Lord of all strength, behold, I am but frail!
Lord of all harvest, few the grapes and pale
Allotted for my wine-press! Thou, Lord,
Who boldest in thy gift the tempered sword....

No child, no mortal child am I,
No angel from the blue on high,
And, though I gayly dance and shout,
No Cupid, from a Bacchic rout.

But I am all young innocence.
So young I do not know offence....

Get you away! Is not the rose at flow'r?
And list that song! The bird is in the sky!
Ah, foolish one, I know your final hour,
I know the very place where you shall lie.
...

(On a fragment by De Bussy.)

Thy slender form I think I see
On winter hills of Tuscany,
Thy slender pipe I think I hear,
So very faint, so very clear.

That lonely reed! It seems to me...

That haunting air had some far strain of it,
That morning rose hath flung it back to met
The wind of spring, the ancient, awful sea.
Bid me remember it.

And looking back against the look of Love,...

Ah, give again the pitiless snow and sleet
November's leaves, or raving winds, that beat
The heart's own doors, or rain's long ache and fret!
Only, not spring and all this delicate sweet!...

When on the spring's enchanting blue
You trace your slender leaves and few,
Then do I wish myself re-born
To lands of hope, to lands of morn.

And when you wear your rich attire,...

"Thou hast not lived! No aim of earth
Thy body serves, nor home nor birth;
No children's eyes look up to thee
To solace thy mortality."

"Thou hast not lived! Forbidden seas...

But that one air for all that throng! And yet
How wondrously the magic strain went through
Those thousand hearts! I saw young eyes, that knew
Only the fairest sights, grow dim and wet,...

Pass, pass, you fiery spirit! Never bland
And halting never! Hosted round to-night,
At the great wall, with spears of lifted light,
Held by embattled seraphim, who stand...

Stand up, you Strong! Touch glasses! To the Weak!
The Weak who fight: or habit or disease,
Birth, chance, or ignorance, or awful wreak
Of some lost forbear, who has drained the cup...

(News Item: "It remains true that two hundred English and American men were sacrificed for as many peasant women.")

Once more I read, writ out in blood and tears,
Across this midnight page of sea and sky,...

Spare us, Lord, that last, that dreariest ill!
Thy wrath's grim thunder, and thy lightning-scorn
For our iniquity, that we have worn
Soft as a grace, these, if it be thy will,...

(At the Exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum, March, 1910.)

So sharp the sword, so airy the defence!
As 'twere a play, or delicate pretence!
So fine and strange, so subtly poised, too...