Works

I Bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams,
White woman that passion has worn
As the tide wears the dove-grey sands,
And with heart more old than the horn...

"Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand"
"Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think"
"How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink"
"Thy children left unfit, through vain demand"...

Muse, you have opened like a flower.

* * * * *

Long ago I knew that brown integument,
Like a dead husk, had dormant life within it,
And waited till a first white point appeared...

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,...

Right Trusty, and so forth - we let you know
We are very ill used by you mortals below.
For, first, I have often by chemists been told,
(Though I know nothing on't,) it is I that make gold;...

No more: the end is sudden and abrupt,
Abrupt, as without preconceived design
Was the beginning; yet the several Lays
Have moved in order, to each other bound
By a continuous and acknowledged tie...

I know a pool, whose crystalline repose
Sleeps under walls of granite, whence the pine
Leans looking at its image, line for line
Repeated with the sumach and wild-rose...

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
Flowed silver to the west,
Nor noticed night did soft descend
Nor constellation burn,...

One man repentant is of more esteem
With God, than one that never sinned 'gainst Him.

I met you first - ah, when did I first meet you?
When I was full of wonder, and innocent,
Standing meek-eyed with those of choric bent,
While dimming day grew dimmer
In the pulpit-glimmer.
...

("O Soleil!")

[Bk. II. iv., Anniversary of the Coup d''tat, 1852.]


O Sun! thou countenance divine!
Wild flowers of the glen,
Caves swoll'n with shadow, where sunshine...

You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam;
You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear;
You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam;
The very breath of it is ripe with cheer....

Such a starved bank of moss
Till, that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
Violets were born!

Sky, what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:...

Laconic tears or Botticelli's Venus
holding the years
like tresses
in a wistful pose.

Tenebrous youth accosted
by callow Time
bleeds the heart
with spring aloes....

(With a pencil sketch of an Angel by Botticelli)


Thou in whose All no work imperfect stands,
Thou who dost gaze on Beauty's unveiled face,
Grant to Thy children Thy sustaining grace,...

All sights and sounds of day and year,
All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
Are thine, O God, nor will I fear
To talk to thee of them.

Too great thy heart is to despise,...

Now far from my old northern land,
I live where gentle winters pass;
Where green seas lave a wealthy strand,
And unsown is the grass;

Where gorgeous sunsets claim the scope...

O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear?
In whose dread presence, ere an hour
Perhaps I must appear!

If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;...

Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven?
Are these your hands upon my wounded soul?
Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me,
Fly by my path till you have made me whole!

Perch' tuo gran bellezze.


That thy great beauty on our earth may be
Shrined in a lady softer and more kind,
I call on nature to collect and bind
All those delights the slow years steal from thee,...