Works

With triumphs gay of old romance. - KEATS.


PRELUDE.

Why, dreams from dreams in dreams remembered! naught
Save this, alas! that once it seemed I thought...

There is a place hung o'er of summer boughs
And dreamy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps;
Where water flows, within whose lazy deeps,
Like silvery prisms where the sunbeams drowse,...

There is a place hung o'er with summer boughs
And drowsy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps;
Where waters flow, within whose lazy deeps,
Like silvery prisms that the winds arouse,...

Rain will fall on the fading flowers,
Winds will blow through the dripping tree,
When Fall leads in her tattered Hours
With Death to keep them company.
All night long in the weeping weather,...

There is a house beside a way,
Where dwells a ghost of Yesterday:
The old face of a beauty, faded,
Looks from its garden: and the shaded
Long walks of locust-trees, that seem...

I.

Long vollies of wind and of rain
And the rain on the drizzled pane,
And the eve falls chill and murk;
But on yesterday's eve I know
How a horned moon's thorn-like bow...

Sullen gold down all the sky,
In the roses sultry musk;
Nightingales hid in the dusk
Yonder sob and sigh.

You are here; and I could weep,
Weep for joy and suffering....

I.

To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright,
Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it,
Low in the west; a placid purple lit
At its far edge with warm auroral light:...

Serious but smiling, stately and serene,
And dreamier than a flower;
A girl in whom all sympathies convene
As perfumes in a bower;
Through whom one feels what soul and heart may mean,...

The drowsy day, with half-closed eyes,
Dreams in this quaint forgotten street,
That, like some old-world wreckage, lies,
Left by the sea's receding beat,
Far from the city's restless feet.
...

White moons may come, white moons may go -
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Knows nothing of the leafy June,
That leans above her night and noon,
Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,...

Be glad, just for to-day!
O heart, be glad!
Cast all your cares away!
Doff all that 's sad!
Put of your garments gray
Be glad to-day!
Be merry while you-can;
For life is short...

Leaves fall and flowers fade,
Days come and go:
Now is sweet Summer laid
Low in her leafy glade,
Low like a fragrant maid,
Low, low, ah, low.

Tears fall and eyelids ache,...

I

I wot well o' his going
To think in flowers fair; -
His a right kind heart, my dear,
To give the grass such hair.


II.

I wot well o' his lying...

In soft sad nights, when all the still lagoon
Lolls in a wealth of golden radiance,
I sit like one enchanted in a trance,
And see them 'twixt the haunted mist and moon.
...

I.

One night when trees were tumbled down,
And wild winds shook at sea the sail,
Old Gammer Gaffer, lean and brown,
Chuckled and whistled on her nail;
Then seized her broom and, mounting it,...

To weed the Garden of the Mind
Of all rank growths of doubt and sin,
And let faith's flowers thrive and win
To blossom; and, through faith, to find
That lilies, too, can toil and spin,...

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped
The crystal silence into sound;
And where the branches dreamed and dripped
A grasshopper its dagger stripped
And on the humming darkness ground.
...

"Succinctae sacra Dianae".
- OVID

I

There the ragged sunlight lay
Tawny on thick ferns and gray
On dark waters: dimmer,
Lone and deep, the cypress grove
Bowered mystery and wove...

I


What wood-god, on this water's mossy curb,
Lost in reflections of earth's loveliness,
Did I, just now, unconsciously disturb?
I, who haphazard, wandering at a guess,...