Works

I.

What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast,
Which hadst the world for pasture, and for scope
And compass of thine homicidal hope
The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast...

Why is there in the least touch of her hands
More grace than other women's lips bestow,
If love is but a slave in fleshly bands
Of flesh to flesh, wherever love may go?
...

Why do you spurt and sprottle
like that, bunny?
Why should I want to throttle
you, bunny?

Yes, bunch yourself between
my knees and lie still.
Lie on me with a hot, plumb, live weight,...

The day is ruined. The sky is drunk.
Like false pearls, little stumps
Of chopped up light lie around and reveal
A glimpse of streets, a few clumps of houses.
Everything else is rotten and devoured...

(Tirol, 1874)
(See Note 61)

Dishonored by the higher, but loved by all the low, -
Say, is it not the pathway that the new has to go?
By those who ought to guard it betrayed, oh yes, betrayed, -...

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,...

I'm quite of your mind;--tho' these Pats cry aloud
That they've got "too much Church," 'tis all nonsense and stuff;
For Church is like Love, of which Figaro vowed
That even too much of it's not quite enough....

So that's Cleopathera's Needle, bedad,
An' a quare lookin' needle it is, I'll be bound;
What a powerful muscle the queen must have had
That could grasp such a weapon an' wind it around!
...

Regret not me;
Beneath the sunny tree
I lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully.

Swift as the light
I flew my faery flight;
Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night.

I did not know...

1.

Remind me not, remind me not,
Of those beloved, those vanish'd hours,
When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
Till Time unnerves our vital powers,...

It is a fault oneself to praise,

And yet 'tis done by each whose deeds are kind;
And if there's no deceit in what he says,

The good we still as good shall find.
...

Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
...

Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

...

My song is of that city which
Has men too poor and men too rich;
Where some are sick, too richly fed,
While others take the sparrows' bread:
Where some have beds to warm their bones,...

Long is it since they ceased to look on light,
To thrill with hope in our fond human way.
Why grudge them rest in their sweet ancient night,
Ungrieved, if never gay,
Eased from Life's sorry day?
...

He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed,
Amazed, amazed, amazed, amazed.

I.

Masks

Death rides black-masked to-night; and through the land
Madness beside him brandishes a torch.
The peaceful farmhouse with its vine-wreathed porch...

Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me? -
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
One thought alone brings he.

I can recall no word
Of anything he did;...

(April, 1887)



These numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry
Outskeleton Time's central city, Rome;
Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome
Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy.
...

Soul, wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard
Hundreds have lost, indeed,
But tens have won an all.

Angels' breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee;
Imps in eager caucus...