Works

("Nor does being weary imply that there is any place to rest.")

Yea, by your wants bestead,
You come Myself to know;
For if I be not bread,
Why hunger so?

And if not water I,...

At night it is not strange that thou art dead;
I give thee to the stars, the moonlight snow;
But ah, when desolate I lift my head,
And thou art gone at early morning, No!

The falling of a leaf upon thy way,
The flutter of a bird along thy sky,
Thou God, to whom the ages are a day,
Ev'n such, alas! oh, ev'n such am I!

So long the time, O Lord, when I was not....

A wild spring upland all this charmed page,
Where, in the early dawn, the maenads rage,
Mad, chaste, and lovely! This, a darker spot
Where lone Antigone bewails her lot....

Shall I not give this world my heart, and well?
If for naught else, for many a miracle
Of the impassioned spring, the rose, the snow?
Nay, by the spring that still must come and go...

The bride, she wears a white, white rose, the plucking, it was mine;
The poet wears a laurel wreath, and I the laurel twine;
And oh, the child, your little child, that's clinging close to you,...

The night would sadden us with wind and rain
Let's to sweet Comedy and scorn the night!
Let's read together: how, by silver light,
The fairies went, a most enchanting train....

"0, was it on that awful road,
The way of death, you came?"
"It was a little road," he said,
"I never knew its name."

"Is it not rough along that road?"
"I cannot tell," said he,...

(The Lord God speaks to a youth.)

Bend now thy body to the common weight!
(But oh, that vine-clad head, those limbs of morn!
Those proud young shoulders I myself made straight!...

Still, still thy garden hath its fruits and spices,
My Lord, my Lord!
Still hath its wells and pools of thy devices,
My Lord!
White, in a stranger soil, thy lily stands, the close...

("I believe ... in the resurrection of the body.")

How young you are, for such lone majesty

Of silence and repose!
That lip was vowed to laughter and that eye,

That white cheek to the rose!...

Demeter? 'Tis a name! For in thy face
A myriad women find their mourning-place!
Thou, sitting lonely on the wayside stone,
O pagan mother, thou art not alone!
...

O friendly, that I never knew for friend,
O flame, that never warmed me from the cold,
O light, that never beckoned to an end,
Give me but once thy beauty to behold!
...

They sing the race, the song is wildly sweet;
But thou, my harp, oh thou shalt sing the goal!
The distant goal, that draws the bleeding feet
And lights the brow and lifts the fainting soul!...

Dost thou burn low and tremble, all but die?
And dost thou fear in darkness to be whirled?
Nay, flame, thou art mine immortality,
The wind is but the passing of the world!

When I see other women's sons at play,
God, pity me, lest I should turn away
In rage and grief, and should not dare to look
At my child, sitting patient with his book!
...

How splendid and how vain in thee
The ancient quest, Italy!
Too strange that wreath, too strangely worn,
Apollo's laurel, Christ's red thorn!

You are the first wild violet of the year;
Young grass you are, and apple-bloom, and spray
Of honeysuckle; you are dawn of day.
And the first snow-fall! It is you I hear...

Light through a little veil is all thy trace
Of halo, blessed Child!
The sorrow of the world is in thy face,
fair, undefiled!
dear and undefiled!

The kneeling boy, with pretty lips apart,...

Yes, Lord, I know! The child is thine
And in thy house he shall grow up.
Nor know the lash of life, nor cup
Of trembling, as if child of mine.

But ah, forgive me!, is he warm?...