Julia, if I chance to die Ere I print my poetry, I most humbly thee desire To commit it to the fire: Better 'twere my book were dead, Than to live not perfected.
From the dull confines of the drooping west To see the day spring from the pregnant east, Ravish'd in spirit, I come, nay more, I fly To thee, blest place of my nativity!...
"I'm home again, my dear old Room, I'm home again, and happy, too, As, peering through the brightening gloom, I find myself alone with you: Though brief my stay, nor far away,...
When that day comes, whose evening says I'm gone Unto that watery desolation; Devoutly to thy Closet-gods then pray, That my wing'd ship may meet no Remora. Those deities which circum-walk the seas,...
Perhaps in some respects it's true That you resemble dad; To be informed I look like you Would never make me mad. But one thing I am sure of, son, You have a different line...
I send, I send here my supremest kiss To thee, my silver-footed Thamesis. No more shall I reiterate thy Strand, Whereon so many stately structures stand: Nor in the summer's sweeter evenings go...
An Epilogue, through custom, is your right, But ne'er perhaps was needful till this night: To-night the virtuous falls, the guilty flies, Guilt's dreadful close our narrow scene denies....
History has to live with what was here, clutching and close to fumbling all we had, it is so dull and gruesome how we die, unlike writing, life never finishes. Abel was finished; death is not remote,...
Close the book and dim the light, I shall read no more to-night. No - I am not sleepy, dear - Do not go: sit by me here In the darkness and the deep Silence of the watch I keep....
I had a vision in my sleep last night between sleeping and waking. A figure standing beside me, thin, miserable, sad and sorrowful; the shadow of night upon his face, the tracks of the tears down his cheeks. His ribs were bendi...
I come across from Mellstock while the moon wastes weaker To behold where I lived with you for twenty years and more: I shall go in the gray, at the passing of the mail-train,...
Cry "Murder" in the market-place, and each Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes Asking: "Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain Some centuries ago across the world....
Come thou, who art the wine and wit Of all I've writ; The grace, the glory, and the best Piece of the rest; Thou art of what I did intend The All, and End; And what was made, was made to meet....