Works

I looked up from my writing,
And gave a start to see,
As if rapt in my inditing,
The moon's full gaze on me.

Her meditative misty head
Was spectral in its air,
And I involuntarily said,...

I look in her face and say,
"Sing as you used to sing
About Love's blossoming";
But she hints not Yea or Nay.

"Sing, then, that Love's a pain,
If, Dear, you think it so,
Whether it be or no;"...

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,...

I love thee, sweet Mary, but love thee in fear;
Were I but the morning breeze, healthful and airy,
As thou goest a-walking I'd breathe in thine ear,
And whisper and sigh, how I love thee, my Mary!
...

When you've managed with the tailor for a rig-out of a sort
And you find the coat or trousers are an inch or so too short,
Do not fret and swear and worry, make the tailor see you through,...

I many times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At centre of the sea,

And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,...

I meant to do my work to-day -
But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,...

I meant to find her when I came;
Death had the same design;
But the success was his, it seems,
And the discomfit mine.

I meant to tell her how I longed
For just this single time;...

I met a man when night was nigh,
Who said, with shining face and eye
Like Moses' after Sinai:-

"I have seen the Moulder of Monarchies,
Realms, peoples, plains and hills,...

I met at eve the Prince of Sleep,
His was a still and lovely face,
He wandered through a valley steep
Lovely in a lonely place.

His garb was grey of lavender,
About his brows a poppy-wreath...

I.

Ti saluto, Margherita
Fior di vita, ... ti saluto!
Sei la speme del mattino,
Sei la gioja del giardino.


II.

Ti saluto, Rosignolo
Nel tuo duolo, ... ti saluto!...

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies;
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, grey city
An influence luminous and serene,...

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They 'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog...

A pretty task, Miss S - - , to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.

No lover's plaint my muse must paint
To fill this page's span,...

Timur, I hear, took the trouble to conquer the earth.
I don't understand him.
With a bit of hard liquor you can forget the earth.

I'm not saying anything against Alexander,...

The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a Harmony in grey:
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold

The yellow fog came creeping down...

'Twas but for a moment--and yet in that time
She crowded the impressions of many an hour:
Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime,
Which waked every feeling at once into flower.
...

By Beauty's caresses, like Cupid, half-spoil'd,
Thus Music's and Poesy's favourite child
Exclaim'd, - "'Tis, by Heaven! a terrible thing
Before a he-party to sit and to sing!"...

Old Winter, with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferr'd,
What have I done of all the year,
To bear this hated doom severe?
My cheerless suns no pleasure know;...

Whilst, in a dress that one might swear
The whole was made of woven air,
Pert Fashion spreads her senseless sway
Over the giddy and the gay
(Who think, by showing all their charms,...