The rose to the wind has yielded: all its leavesLie strewn on the graveyard grass, and all their lightAnd colour and fragrance leave our sense and sightBereft as a man whom bitter time bereavesOf blossom at once and hope of garnered sheaves,Of April at once and August. Day to nightCalls wailing, and life to death, […]

The days of a man are threescore years and ten.The days of his life were half a man’s, whom weLament, and would yet not bid him back, to bePartaker of all the woes and ways of men.Life sent him enough of sorrow: not againWould anguish of love, beholding him set free,Bring back the beloved to […]

Watching here alone by the fire whereat last yearSat with me the friend that a week since yet was near,That a week has borne so far and hid so deep,Woe am I that I may not weep,May not yearn to behold him here. Shame were mine, and little the love I bore him were,Now to […]

I Stately, kindly, lordly friend,CondescendHere to sit by me, and turnGlorious eyes that smile and burn,Golden eyes, love’s lustrous meed,On the golden page I read. All your wondrous wealth of hair,Dark and fair,Silken-shaggy, soft and brightAs the clouds and beams of night,Pays my reverent hand’s caressBack with friendlier gentleness. Dogs may fawn on all and […]

TO PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON Love will not weep because the seal is brokenThat sealed upon a life beloved and briefDarkness, and let but song break through for tokenHow deep, too far for even thy song’s relief,Slept in thy soul the secret springs of grief. Thy song may soothe full many a soul hereafter,As tears, if […]

Many waters cannot quench love,Neither can the floods drown it.Who shall snare or slay the white doveFaith, whose very dreams crown it,Gird it round with grace and peace, deep,Warm, and pure, and soft as sweet sleep?Many waters cannot quench love,Neither can the floods drown it. Set me as a seal upon thine heart,As a seal […]

If the rose of all flowers be the rarestThat heaven may adore from above,And the fervent moss-rose be the fairestThat sweetens the summer with love, Can it be that a fairer than anyShould blossom afar from the tree?Yet one, and a symbol of many,Shone sudden for eyes that could see. In the grime and the […]

As a vesture shalt thou change them, said the prophet,And the raiment that was flesh is turned to dust;Dust and flesh and dust again the likeness of it,And the fine gold woven and worn of youth is rust.Hours that wax and wane salute the shade and scoff it,That it knows not aught it doth nor […]

A life more bright than the sun’s face, bowedThrough stress of season and coil of cloud,Sets: and the sorrow that casts out fearScarce deems him dead in his chill still shroud, Dead on the breast of the dying year,Poet and painter and friend, thrice dearFor love of the suns long set, for loveOf song that […]

I Not from without us, only from within,Comes or can ever come upon us lightWhereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight.No truth, no strength, no comfort man may win,No grace for guidance, no release from sin,Save of his own soul’s giving. Deep and brightAs fire enkindled in the core of nightBurns in the soul […]

He should have followed who goes forth before us,Last born of us in life, in death first-born:The last to lift up eyes against the morn,The first to see the sunset. Life, that bore usPerchance for death to comfort and restore us,Of him hath left us here awhile forlorn,For him is as a garment overworn,And time […]

1893 The sea of the years that endure notWhose tide shall endure till we dieAnd know what the seasons assure not,If death be or life be a lie,Sways hither the spirit and thither,A waif in the swing of the seaWhose wrecks are of memories that witherAs leaves of a tree. We hear not and hail […]

The sea swings owre the slants of sand,All white with winds that drive;The sea swirls up to the still dim strand,Where nae man comes alive. At the grey soft edge of the fruitless surfA light flame sinks and springs;At the grey soft rim of the flowerless turfA low flame leaps and clings. What light is […]

All the golden air is full of balm and bloomWhere the hawthorns line the shelving dyke with flowers.Joyous children born of April’s happiest hours,High and low they laugh and lighten, knowing their doomBright as brief–to bless and cheer they know not whom,Heed not how, but washed and warmed with suns and showersSmile, and bid the […]

Now who will speak, and lie not,And pledge not life, but give?Slaves herd with herded cattle:The dawn grows bright for battle,And if we die, we die not;And if we live, we live. The faith our fathers fought for,The kings our fathers knew,We fight but as they fought for:We seek the goal they sought for,The chance […]

The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn. Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne, Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing plough The strange black soil foamed, as a black […]

The dusk of day’s decline was hard on dark When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp That shone across her shades and dewy damp A small clear beacon whose benignant spark Was gracious yet for loiterers’ eyes to mark, Though changed the watchword of our English camp Since the outposts rang round Marlowe’s lion ramp, […]

Day was a full-blown flower in heaven, alive With murmuring joy of bees and birds aswarm, When in the skies of song yet flushed and warm With music where all passion seems to strive For utterance, all things bright and fierce to drive Struggling along the splendour of the storm, Day for an hour put […]

Mother whose womb brought forth our man of men, Mother of Shakespeare, whom all time acclaims Queen therefore, sovereign queen of English dames, Throned higher than sat thy sonless empress then, Was it thy son’s young passion-guided pen Which drew, reflected from encircling flames, A figure marked by the earlier of thy names Wife, and […]

Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben, All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale, Bright from the broad light of its presence, hail! Prince Randolph, nighest his throne of all his men, Being highest in spirit and heart who hailed him then King, nor might other spread so blithe a sail: Cartwright, a […]