Works

Babe, if rhyme be none
For that sweet small word
Babe, the sweetest one
Ever heard,
Right it is and meet
Rhyme should keep not true
Time with such a sweet
Thing as you....

I

Fire out of heaven, a flower of perfect fire,
That where the roots of life are had its root
And where the fruits of time are brought forth fruit;
A faith made flesh, a visible desire,...

Death, I would plead against thy wrong,
Who hast reft me of my love, my wife,
And art not satiate yet with strife,
But needs wilt hold me lingering long.
No strength since then has kept me strong:...

Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar,
Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam,
And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows that mar
Theleme....

I
The clearest eyes in all the world they read
With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true
Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew
Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed,...

Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses,
Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but nought
In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is
Far-fetched and dear-bought.
...

Sea beyond sea, sand after sweep of sand,
Here ivory smooth, here cloven and ridged with flow
Of channelled waters soft as rain or snow,
Stretch their lone length at ease beneath the bland...

Push hard across the sand,
For the salt wind gathers breath;
Shoulder and wrist and hand,
Push hard as the push of death.

The wind is as iron that rings,
The foam-heads loosen and flee;...

The heart of the rulers is sick, and the high-priest covers his head:
For this is the song of the quick that is heard in the ears of the dead.

The poor and the halt and the blind are keen and mighty and fleet:...

Inscribed With All Devotion and Reverence To: JOSEPH MAZZINI


DIRAE

I saw the double-featured statue stand
Of Memnon or of Janus, half with night...

England, elect of time,
By freedom sealed sublime,
And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn
Outshine upon the sea
His own in heaven, to be
A light that night nor day should see withdrawn,...

After reading Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia in the garden of an old English manor house

I
A star in the silence that follows
The song of the death of the sun
Speaks music in heaven, and the hollows...

If that be yet a living soul which here
Seemed brighter for the growth of numbered springs
And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier things
Each year it saw fulfilled a fresh fleet year,...

Somno mollior unda


I
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,
Fair and flawless from face to feet,...

I
Good night, we say, when comes the time to win
The daily death divine that shuts up sight,
Sleep, that assures for all who dwell therein
Good night.
The shadow shed round those we love shines bright...

Men of Eleusis, ye that with long staves
Sit in the market-houses, and speak words
Made sweet with wisdom as the rare wine is
Thickened with honey; and ye sons of these...

Str. I.

Ere from under earth again like fire the violet kindle,
Ere the holy buds and hoar on olive-branches bloom,
Ere the crescent of the last pale month of winter dwindle,...

'Farewell and adieu' was the burden prevailing
Long since in the chant of a home-faring crew;
And the heart in us echoes, with laughing or wailing,
Farewell and adieu.
...

There were four apples on the bough,
Half gold half red, that one might know
The blood was ripe inside the core;
The colour of the leaves was more
Like stems of yellow corn that grow...

La plus douce des voix qui vibraient sous le ciel
Se tait: les rossignols ail's pleurent le fr're
Qui s'envole au-dessus de l''pre et sombre terre,
Ne lui laissant plus voir que l''tre essentiel,...