I. Love, loyallest and lordliest born of things, Immortal that shouldst be, though all else end, In plighted hearts of fearless friend with friend, Whose hand may curb or clip thy plume-plucked wings?...
Lying asleep between the strokes of night I saw my love lean over my sad bed, Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head, Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,...
We are in love's land to-day; Where shall we go? Love, shall we start or stay, Or sail or row? There's many a wind and way, And never a May but May;...
A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed Through stress of season and coil of cloud, Sets: and the sorrow that casts out fear Scarce deems him dead in his chill still shroud,...
New Year, be good to England. Bid her name Shine sunlike as of old on all the sea: Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free: Bind fast her homeborn foes with links of shame...
When the might of the summer Is most on the sea; When the days overcome her With joy but to be, With rapture of royal enchantment, and sorcery that sets her not free, But for hours upon hours...
If all the flowers of all the fields on earth By wonder-working summer were made one, Its fragrance were not sweeter in the sun, Its treasure-house of leaves were not more worth...
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...
Two souls diverse out of our human sight Pass, followed one with love and each with wonder: The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder, Clothed with loud words and mantled in the might...
O son of man, by lying tongues adored, By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod In carnage deep as ever Christian trod Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred...
Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds, Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds,...
Iscariot, thou grey-grown beast of blood, Stand forth to plead; stand, while red drops run here And there down fingers shaken with foul fear, Down the sick shivering chin that stooped and sued,...
Between the green bud and the red Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed From eyes and tresses flowers and tears, From heart and spirit hopes and fears, Upon the hollow stream whose bed...
Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire, Make bright and loud the terror of the night Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light....
The wind that brings us from the springtide south Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest,...
What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast, Which hadst the world for pasture, and for scope And compass of thine homicidal hope The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast...
All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron Stood and beheld me.
I saw my soul at rest upon a day As a bird sleeping in the nest of night, Among soft leaves that give the starlight way To touch its wings but not its eyes with light; So that it knew as one in visions may,...