Works

"My house is thatched with violet leaves
And paved with daisies fine,
Scarlet berries droop over its eaves,
Tall grasses round it shine;
With softest down I have lined my nest,...

I will remember what I was. I am sick of rope and chain,
I will remember my old strength and all my forest-affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugarcane....

I should have been too glad, I see,
Too lifted for the scant degree
Of life's penurious round;
My little circuit would have shamed
This new circumference, have blamed
The homelier time behind.
...

I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!

It was your voice I heard,
You waked and loved me so,
I send you back this word,...

Your paths were all unknown to us:
We were so far away from you,
We mixed in thought your spirit thus--
With whiteness, stars of gold, and dew.

The mighty mother nourished you:...

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea,
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually...

Oh, let me plead with thee to have a nook,
A garden nook, not far from thy domain,
That there, with harp, and voice, and poet-book,
I may be true to thee, and, passion-fain,...

With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line...

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine,
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
...

Why did you go away without one word,
Wave of the hand, or token of good-bye,
Nor leave some message for me with flower or bird,
Some sign to find you by;

Some stray of blossom on the winter road,...

O daughter of our Southern sun,
Sweet sister of each flower,
Dost dream in terraced Avalon
A shadow-haunted hour?
Or stand with Guinevere upon
Some ivied Camelot tower?
...

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:
You are to die Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you There is no escape for you.
...

When, with all the loved around thee,
Still thy heart says, "I am lonely,"
It is well; the truth hath found thee:
Rest is with the Father only.

Within this false world we may count ourselves blest,
If we have but one friend who is faithful and true;
And so in your friendship contented I'll rest,
And believe I have found that one blessing in you.

You make our faults too gross, and thence maintain
Our darker future. May your fears be vain!
At times the small black fly upon the pane
May seem the black ox of the distant plain.

"To one who teaches me
The sweetness and the beauty
Of doing faithfully
And cheerfully my duty."

Inmate of a mountain-dwelling,
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Helvellyn;
Awed, delighted, and amazed!

Potent was the spell that bound thee
Not unwilling to obey;...

Put off the vestal Veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels View it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow.
And blush repenting through it.

Put off the fatal zone you wear;
The shining pearls around it...

Across what calm of tropic seas,
'Neath alien clusters of the nights,
Looked, in the past, such eyes as these?
Long-quenched, relumed, ancestral lights!

The generations fostered them;...