I am that which began; Out of me the years roll; Out of me God and man; I am equal and whole; God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.
Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is, Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy, As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,...
Beneath the shadow of dawn's aerial cope, With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere, Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope...
Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by; To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us Goodnight and goodbye....
Yet again another, ere his crowning year, Gone from friends that here may look for him no more. Never now for him shall hope set wide the door, Hope that hailed him hither, fain to greet him here....
I. The stainless soul that smiled through glorious eyes; The bright grave brow whereon dark fortune's blast Might blow, but might not bend it, nor o'ercast, Save for one fierce fleet hour of shame, the skies...
Fourscore and five times has the gradual year Risen and fulfilled its days of youth and eld Since first the child's eyes opening first beheld Light, who now leaves behind to help us here...
The mightiest choir of song that memory hears Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years. Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes....
Tom, if they loved thee best who called thee Tom. What else may all men call thee, seeing thus bright Even yet the laughing and the weeping light That still thy kind old eyes are kindled from?...
O Night and death, to whom we grudged him then, When in man's sight he stood not yet undone, Your king, your priest, your saviour, and your son, We grudge not now, who know that not again...
Is it so, that the sword is broken, Our sword, that was halfway drawn? Is it so, that the light was a spark, That the bird we hailed as the lark Sang in her sleep in the dark,...
One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is: Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this. What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:...
Fourscore years and seven Light and dew from heaven Have fallen with dawn on these glad woods each day Since here was born, even here, A birth more bright and dear Than ever a younger year...
The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth Heaven: all the spring speaks out in one sweet word, And heaven grows gladder, knowing that earth has heard. Ere half the flowers are jubilant in birth,...
Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast. The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre, With all its chords alive and all at rest,...
Since in Athens God stood plain for adoration, Since the sun beheld his likeness reared in stone, Since the bronze or gold of human consecration Gave to Greece her guardian's form and feature shown,...
In the fair days when God By man as godlike trod, And each alike was Greek, alike was free, God's lightning spared, they said, Alone the happier head Whose laurels screened it; fruitless grace for thee,...