Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies, And the knights still hurried amain To the tournament under the ladies' eyes, Where the jousters were Heart and Brain....
Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled Thy plough to ring this solitary tree With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field, In cool green radius twice my length may be -...
O marriage-bells, your clamor tells Two weddings in one breath. SHE marries whom her love compels: - And I wed Goodman Death! My brain is blank, my tears are red;...
To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height, O'erseeing all that man but undersees; To loiter down lone alleys of delight, And hear the beating of the hearts of trees,...
Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream, Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seem Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;...
If spicy-fringed pinks that blush and pale With passions of perfume, - if violets blue That hint of heaven with odor more than hue, - If perfect roses, each a holy Grail...
Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art, The massive message of Beethoven tell With thy ten fingers to the people's heart As if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell, -...
"I saw a sky of stars that rolled in grime. All glory twinkled through some sweat of fight, From each tall chimney of the roaring time That shot his fire far up the sooty night...
A white face, drooping, on a bending neck: A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves Her stem: a foam-bell on a wave that swerves Back from the undulating vessel's deck. ...
Trim set in ancient sward, his manful bole Upbore his frontage largely toward the sky. We could not dream but that he had a soul: What virtue breathed from out his bravery! ...