Works

That I should live and look with open eyes
I count as half my claim to Paradise.
I have not crept beneath cathedral arches,
But bathed in streams beneath the silver larches;
...

Tools with the comely names,
Mattock and scythe and spade,
Couth and bitter as flames,
Clean, and bowed in the blade,
A man and his tools make a man and his trade.

Breadth of the English shires,...

Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild
Even in indignation, taking by the hand
One that obeyed them mutely, as a child
Submissive to a law he does not understand.
...

For years it had been neglected,
This wilderness garden of ours,
And its ruin had shone reflected
In its pools through abandoned hours.
For none had cared for its beauty...

I know so well the busy cries
That echo through the quarter
Till daylight into evening dies
And stars shine in the water,
So dear they have become to me,
Leblebidji! leblebidji!
...

I
Queen of a double empire still she stands,
And watches with superb indifferent eyes
The eager wooing of Imperial hands
Towards so fair and coveted a prize.
...

After a dream-dim voyage
We came with sails all set
Towards the city of the sea,
And it was wonderful to me
To find her reigning yet.

Oh beauty that my eyes and heart
Had feasted on before!...

A sunny court with wooden balconies,
And wool hung out to dry in gaudy skeins,
A fountain, and some pigeons murmuringly
Picking up yellow grains.

Pass through a little tumble-down green door...

Above the city at his feet,
Above the dome, above the sea,
He rises unconfined and free
To break upon the noonday heat.

He turns around the parapet,
Black-robed against the marble tower;...

As the baying of wolves from afar,
Borne on the wind from the Golden Horn
A cry in the distance, long-drawn,
"Yanghin var! yanghin var!"

Suddenly waking the silent night,...

When I am in the Orient once again,
And turn into the gay and squalid street,
One side in the shadow, one in vivid heat,
The thought of England, fresh beneath the rain,
Will rise unbidden as a gently pain....

I wrote the burning words to you
That meant so much to me.
I sent them speeding straight to you,
To you across the sea;
I waited with sure reckoning
For your reply to me.
...

When little lights in little ports come out,
Quivering down through water with the stars,
And all the fishing fleet of slender spars
Range at their moorings, veer with tide about;
...

No eyes shall see the poems that I write
For you; not even yours; but after long
Forgetful years have passed on our delight
Some hand may chance upon a dusty song
...

She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers
Someone had brought her from Ispahan,
And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,
And the coral-hafted feather fan;...

All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,
Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home
No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn
Where she was wont to roam.
...

So prodigal was I of youth,
Forgetting I was young;
I worshipped dead men for their strength,
Forgetting I was strong.

I cherished old, jejune advice;
I thought I groped for truth;...

She has an early morning of her own,
A blending of the mist and sea and sun
Into an undistinguishable one,
And Saint Sophia, from her lordly throne

Rises above the opalescent cloud,...

From the shores of the Atlantic to the gardens of Japan,
From the darkness of the Neva to the courts of Ispahan,
There is nothing that can hold us, hold our wandering caravan.
...

I see the work of others, and my heart
Sinks as my own achievement I compare.
I will not be irresolute, nor despair,
But battle strongly for my struggling art

Convinced against conviction that my part...