Song wakes with every wakening year From hearts of birds that only feel Brief spring's deciduous flower-time near: And song more strong to help or heal...
Like a queen enchanted who may not laugh or weep, Glad at heart and guarded from change and care like ours, Girt about with beauty by days and nights that creep...
The burden of fair women. Vain delight, And love self-slain in some sweet shameful way, And sorrowful old age that comes by night As a thief comes that has no heart by day,...
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth, Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;...
I hid my heart in a nest of roses, Out of the sun's way, hidden apart; In a softer bed then the soft white snow's is, Under the roses I hid my heart. Why would it sleep not? why should it start,...
I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers, Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass, In midst whereof there was A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours. Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,...
High beyond the granite portal arched across Like the gateway of some godlike giant's hold Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss East and westward, and the dell their slopes enfold...
I Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers That bask in heavenly heat When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers, Soft, small, and sweet. A babe's hands open as to greet...
The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise, Rise and make revel, as of old men said, Like dancing hearts of lovers newly wed: A light more bright than ever bathed the skies...
All Afric, winged with death and fire, Pants in our pleasant English air. Each blade of grass is tense as wire, And all the wood's loose trembling hair Stark in the broad and breathless glare...
Along these low pleached lanes, on such a day, So soft a day as this, through shade and sun, With glad grave eyes that scanned the glad wild way, And heart still hovering o'er a song begun,...
Here begins the sea that ends not till the world's end. Where we stand, Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that gleam, We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath scanned....
I. Twice twelve times have the springs of years refilled Their fountains from the river-head of time Since by the green sea's marge, ere autumn chilled...
Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can the floods drown it. Who shall snare or slay the white dove Faith, whose very dreams crown it, Gird it round with grace and peace, deep,...
Death, I would plead against thy wrong, Who hast reft me of my love, my wife, And art not satiate yet with strife, But needs wilt hold me lingering long. No strength since then has kept me strong:...
Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar, Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam, And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows that mar Theleme....
I The clearest eyes in all the world they read With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed,...