Works

Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the briar's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are -
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries...

A common wayside flower it grew,
Unhandsome and unnoticed too,
Except in deprecation
That such an herb unreared by toil,
Prolific cumberer of the soil,
Defied extermination.
...

Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time
Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past:
Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,
And noble dreams that had to end at last: -...

All the wide world is but the thought of you:
Who made you out of wonder and of dew?
Was it some god with tears in his deep eyes,
Who loved a woman white and over-wise,...

All the flowers cannot weave
A garland worthy of your hair,
Not a bird in the four winds
Can sing of you that is so fair.

Only the spheres can sing of you;
Some planet in celestial space,...

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman's face, or worse,
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand...

All things decay with time: The forest sees
The growth and down-fall of her aged trees;
That timber tall, which three-score lustres stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood,...

Adverse and prosperous fortunes both work on
Here, for the righteous man's salvation;
Be he oppos'd, or be he not withstood,
All serve to th' augmentation of his good.

All Things will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing

Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing

Over the sky....

All.

I, All-Creation, sing my song of praise
To God Who made me and vouchsafes my days,
And sends me forth by multitudinous ways.

Seraph.

I, like my Brethren, burn eternally...

Across the world she sends me word,
From gardens fair as Falerina's,
Now by a blossom, now a bird,
To come to her, who long has lured
With magic sweeter than Alcina's.
...

From yonder hedge, from yonder spray,
He calls me onward and away;
Broad lies the world and fair to see,
The cuckoo calls, is calling me!

I have not seen nor heard of Care,...

It worn't for her winnin ways,
Nor for her bonny face
But shoo wor th' only lass we had,
An that quite alters th' case.

We'd two fine lads as yo need see,
An' weel we love 'em still;...

What my name is, or where I live, or if
I am that Alma Bell whose name is broached
With Elenor Murray's who shall know from this?
My hand-writing I hide in type, I send...

Know you her secret none can utter?
Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
Still by the gateway flits the gown;
Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,...

Matthew met Richard, when or where
From story is not mighty clear:
Of many knotty points they spoke,
And pro and con by turns they took:
Rats half the manuscript have ate;...

But shall we take the Muse abroad,
To drop her idly on the road,
And leave our subject in the middle,
As Butler did his Bear and Fiddle?
Yet he, consummate master, knew
When to recede and where pursue:...

Richard, who now was half asleep,
Roused, nor would longer silence keep;
And sense like this, in vocal breath,
Broke from his twofold hedge of teeth.
Now if this phrase too harsh be thought,...

Not that dull spleen which serves i' the world for scorn,
Is hers I watch from far off, worshipping
As in remote Chaldaea the ancient king
Adored the star that heralded the morn....

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,...