Works

When your father, long ago, tried to train you - and you know
He thought mornings meant for school, and not for swimming -
How your heart beat loud in dread as relentlessly he said,...

At morn I prayed, "I fain would see
How Three are One, and One is Three;
Read the dark riddle unto me."

I wandered forth, the sun and air
I saw bestowed with equal care...

My mind a buzz saw,
wood chips in decapitated thought
soil chilblained hands

II
Cleansing wood,
the keen smell of sawdust
- good, raw earth drenching
the nostril, clean odour...

So well she knew them both! yet as she came
Into the room, and heard their speech
Of tragic meshes knotted with her name,
And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each...

Oh that men would praise the Lord
For his goodness unto men!
Forth he sends his saving word,
--Oh that men would praise the Lord!--
And from shades of death abhorred
Lifts them up to light again:...

"I love you, my lord!"
Was all that she said,
What a dissonant chord,
"I love you, my lord!"
Ah! how I abhorred
That sarcastic maid!
"I love you? My Lord!"
Was all that she said.

After the melting of the snow
Divines depart and April comes;
Examinations nearer grow
After the melting of the snow;
The grinder wears a face of woe,
The waster smokes and twirls his thumbs;...

When the heart is a cup
In the body low lying,
And wine, drop by drop
Falls into that cup

From somewhere high up,
It is good to be dying
With the heart for a cup
In the body low lying.

Before a lonely shrine
Of foam-born Aphrodite,
Ungarlanded of vine,
Undyed by dripping wine,
I brought green bay to twine,
And prayed to her, almighty,
And lo, the prayer of mine...

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]

O well for him who lives at ease
With garnered gold in wide domain,
Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,
The crashing down of forest trees.
...

Tristram

Is she not come? The messenger was sure.
Prop me upon the pillows once again
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.
Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!...

I

TRISTRAM

Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure,
Prop me upon the pillows once again,
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure....

Night and vast caverns of rock and of iron;
Voices like water, and voices like wind;
Horror and tempests of hail that environ
Shapes and the shadows of two who have sinned.
...

''As the dawn loves the sunlight I love thee;'
As men that shall be swallowed of the sea
Love the sea's lovely beauty; as the night
That wanes before it loves the young sweet light,...

Out of the night arose the second day,
And saw the ship's bows break the shoreward spray.
As the sun's boat of gold and fire began
To sail the sea of heaven unsailed of man,...

Love, that is first and last of all things made,
The light that has the living world for shade,
The spirit that for temporal veil has on
The souls of all men woven in unison,...

About the middle music of the spring
Came from the castled shore of Ireland's king
A fair ship stoutly sailing, eastward bound
And south by Wales and all its wonders round...

Spring watched her last moon burn and fade with May
While the days deepened toward a bridal day.
And on her snowbright hand the ring was set
While in the maiden's ear the song's word yet...

Fate, that was born ere spirit and flesh were made,
The fire that fills man's life with light and shade;
The power beyond all godhead which puts on
All forms of multitudinous unison,...

Enough of ease, O Love, enough of light,
Enough of rest before the shadow of night.
Strong Love, whom death finds feebler; kingly Love,
Whom time discrowns in season, seeing thy dove...