Works

I used to love a radiant girl -
Her lips were like a rose leaf torn;
Her heart was as free as a floating curl,
Or a breeze at morn;
Her step as light as a Peri's daughter,...

He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
...

Time and I have fallen out;
We, who were such steadfast friends.
So slowly has it come about
That none may tell when it began;
Yet sure am I a cunning plan
Runs through it all;...

It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself...

Hush! She is dead! Tread gently as the light
Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look: - In death's ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:...

High stretched upon the swinging yard,
I gather in the sheet;
But it is hard
And stiff, and one cries haste.
Then He that is most dear in my regard
Of all the crew gives aidance meet;...

For some forty years, and over,
Poets had with me their way;
And they made me think that Sorrow
Owned the Night and owned the Day;
And the corpse beneath the clover
Had a hopeful word to say.
...

I wrote the burning words to you
That meant so much to me.
I sent them speeding straight to you,
To you across the sea;
I waited with sure reckoning
For your reply to me.
...

When fires have burnt your forest bare and black,
And you are parched and dizzy, and search in vain
For pools in dust unvisited of rain,
And shamble, lost, along a shimmering track,...

Those unrequited in their love who die
Have never drained life's chief illusion dry.

You mortals see the sky -
I only see the ground,
As through the air I fly.
You mortals see the sky,
And yet with envy sigh
Because to earth you're bound!
You mortals see the sky -...

Oh, that my soul its gods could see
As years ago they seemed to me
When first I painted them;
Invested with the circumstance
Of old conventional romance:
Exploded theorem!
...

Deep planted in the heart of man,
Wherever you may go,
Display hath fertile seeds, which sprout,
And daily larger grow.

As oftentimes, in happy soil,
A lofty tree may rise,...

Tender and tremulous green of leaves
Turned up by the wind,
Twanging among the vines -
Wind in the grass
Blowing a clear path
For the new-stripped soul to pass...
...

Walking in bright Phoebus' blaze,
Where with heat oppressed I was,
I got to a shady wood,
Where green leaves did newly bud;
And of grass was plenty dwelling,
Decked with pied flowers sweetly smelling....

Brother, my thought of you
In this letter on a palm-leaf
Goes up about you
As her own scent
Goes up about the rose.

The bracelets on my arms
Have grown too large
Because you went away....

Many years have I still to burn, detained
Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine
A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps contained
In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine.
...

Cynthius, pluck ye by the ear,
That ye may good doctrine hear;
Play not with the maiden-hair,
For each ringlet there's a snare.
Cheek, and eye, and lip, and chin -
These are traps to take fools in....

To the distance! Ah, the distance!
Blue and broad and dim!
Peace is not in burgh or meadow,
But beyond the rim.

Aye, beyond it, far beyond it;
Follow still my soul,...

A hundred miles between us
Could never part us more
Than that one step you took from me
What time my need was sore.

A hundred years between us
Might hold us less apart...