Deem not my love is only for the bloom, The honey and the marble, that is You; Tis so, Belov'd, common loves consume Their treasury, and vanish like the dew. Nay, but my love's a thing that's far more true;...
Sometimes my idle heart would roam Far from its quiet happy nest, To seek some other newer home, Some unaccustomed Best: But ere it spreads its foolish wings,...
Mammon is this, of murder and of gold, To-day, to-morrow, and ever from of old, Th' Almighty God, and King of every land. Man 'neath his foot, and woman 'neath his hand,...
O spirit of Life, by whatsoe'er a name Known among men, even as our fathers bent Before thee, and as little children came For counsel in Life's dread predicament, Even we, with all our lore,...
Within that wood where thine own scholar strays, O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound But the dark muttering of the forest maze...
May is back, and You and I Are at the stream again - The leaves are out, And all about The building birds begin To make a merry din: May is back, and You and I Are at the dream again. ...
May is building her house. With apple blooms She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams, And, spinning all day at her secret looms,...
Let's go to market in the moon, And buy some dreams together, Slip on your little silver shoon, And don your cap and feather; No need of petticoat or stocking - No one up there will think it shocking....
Morn hath a secret that she never tells: 'Tis on her lips and in her maiden eyes - I think it is the way to Paradise, Or of the Fount of Youth the crystal wells. The bee hath no such honey in her cells...
What are my books? - My friends, my loves, My church, my tavern, and my only wealth; My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves; My only doctors - and my only health.
There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay, My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day. It seemed a sort of maidenhood, My little power for public good, - Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray!...
Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air I cried to God - 'O Father, art Thou there?' Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard: It was an angel, though it seemed a bird.
When all the world has gone awry, And I myself least favour find With my own self, and but to die And leave the whole sad coil behind, Seems but the one and only way;...
Noon like a naked sword lies on the grass, Heavy with gold, and Time itself doth drowse; The little stream, too indolent to pass, Loiters below the cloudy willow boughs,...
I'm not sorry I am older, love - are you? Over all youth's fuss and flurry, All its everlasting hurry, All its solemn self-importance and to-do. Perhaps we missed the highest reaches of high art;...
You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best: A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me! A dream hangs dead on a life it blest. Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see In the cold dank wind of our memory?...
Great Omar, here to-night we drain a bowl Unto thy long-since transmigrated soul, Ours all unworthy in thy place to sit, Ours still to read in life's enchanted scroll. ...
The world grows Lilliput, the great men go; If greatness be, it wears no outer sign; No more the signet of the mighty line Stamps the great brow for all the world to know....