I Mr Lindley was first vicar of Aldecross. The cottages of this tiny hamlet had nestled in peace since their beginning, and the country folk had crossed the lanes and farm-lands, two or three miles, to the parish church at Greymeed, on the bright Sunday mornings. But when the pits were sunk, blank rows of […]

 There was a man who loved islands. He was born on one, but it didn’t suit him, as there were too many other people on it, besides himself. He wanted an island all of his own: not necessarily to be alone on it, but to make it a world of his own. An island, […]

[Note: monkey nuts is another name for peanuts, often used colloquially to indicate a thing or a person of little value. ] At first Joe thought the job O. K. He was loading hay on the trucks, along with Albert, the corporal. The two men were pleasantly billeted in a cottage [Note: Soldiers on leave […]

I They had marched more than thirty kilometres since dawn, along the white, hot road where occasional thickets of trees threw a moment of shade, then out into the glare again. On either hand, the valley, wide and shallow, glittered with heat; dark green patches of rye, pale young corn, fallow and meadow and black […]

SINCE every family has its black sheep, it almost follows that every man must have a sooty uncle. Lucky if he hasn’t two. However, it is only with my mother’s brother that we are concerned. She had loved him dearly when he was a little blond boy. When he grew up black, she was always […]

There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they […]

I It was a mile nearer through the wood. Mechanically, Syson turned up by the forge and lifted the field-gate. The blacksmith and his mate stood still, watching the trespasser. But Syson looked too much a gentleman to be accosted. They let him go in silence across the small field to the wood. There was […]

I A wind was running, so that occasionally the poplars whitened as if a flame flew up them. The sky was broken and blue among moving clouds. Patches of sunshine lay on the level fields, and shadows on the rye and the vineyards. In the distance, very blue, the cathedral bristled against the sky, and […]

WHEN we were children our father often worked on the night-shift. Once it was spring-time, and he used to arrive home, black andtired, just as we were downstairs in our night-dresses. Then nightmet morning face to face, and the contact was not always happy. Perhaps it was painful to my father to see us gaily […]

The mistress ofthe British School stepped down from her school gate, and instead of turning to the left as usual, she turned to the right. Two women who were hastening home to scramble their husbands’ dinners together—it was five minutes to four—stopped to look at her. They stood gazing after her for a moment; then […]

I The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking, stumbling down from Selston with seven full waggons. It appeared round the corner with loud threats of speed, but the colt that it startled from among the gorse, which still flickered indistinctly in the raw afternoon, outdistanced it at a canter. A woman, walking up the […]

I The two large fields lay on a hillside facing south. Being newly cleared of hay, they were golden green, and they shone almost blindingly in the sunlight. Across the hill, half-way up, ran a high hedge, that flung its black shadow finely across the molten glow of the sward. The stack was being built […]

‘Well, Mabel, and what are you going to do with yourself ?’ asked Joe, with foolish flippancy. He felt quite safe himself. Without listening for an answer, he turned aside, worked a grain of tobacco to the tip of his tongue, and spat it out. He did not care about anything, since he felt safe […]

There was a woman who loved her husband, but she could not live with him. The husband, on his side, was sincerely attached to his wife, yet he could not live with her. They were both under forty, both handsome and both attractive. They had the most sincere regard for one another, and felt, in […]

I “I’m getting up, Teddilinks,” said Mrs Whiston, and she sprang out of bed briskly. “What the Hanover’s got you?” asked Whiston. “Nothing. Can’t I get up?” she replied animatedly. It was about seven o’clock, scarcely light yet in the cold bedroom. Whiston lay still and looked at his wife. She was a pretty little […]

THE SUN SHINES, The coltsfoot flowers along the railway banks Shine like flat coin which Jove in thanks Strews each side the lines. A steeple In purple elms, daffodils Sparkle beneath; luminous hills Beyond–and no people. England, Oh Danae To this spring of cosmic gold That falls on your lap of mould! What then are […]

THE CHILD like mustard-seed Rolls out of the husk of death Into the woman’s fertile, fathomless lap. Look, it has taken root! See how it flourisheth. See how it rises with magical, rosy sap! As for our faith, it was there When we did not know, did not care; It fell from our husk like […]

THE WANING MOON looks upward; this grey night Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve To show where the ships at sea move out of sight. The place is palpable me, for here I was born Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below Is out […]

THE sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist That huddles in grey heaps coiling and holding back. Like cliffs abutting in shadow a drear grey sea Some street-ends thrust forward their stack. On the misty waste-lands, away from the flushing grey Of the morning the elms are loftily dimmed, and tall As if moving […]

OBJECTOR. THE hours have tumbled their leaden, monotonous sands And piled them up in a dull grey heap in the West. I carry my patience sullenly through the waste lands; To-morrow will pour them all back, the dull hours I detest. I force my cart through the sodden filth that is pressed Into ooze, and […]

WHEN we came out of the wood Was a great light! The night uprisen stood In white. I wondered, I looked around It was so fair. The bright Stubble upon the ground Shone white Like any field of snow; Yet warm the chase Of faint night-breaths did go Across my face! White-bodied and warm the […]

SURELY you’ve trodden straight To the very door! Surely you took your fate Faultlessly. Now it’s too late To say more. It is evident you were right, That man has a course to go A voyage to sail beyond the charted seas. You have passed from out of sight And my questions blow Back from […]

SO you are lost to me! Ah you, you ear of corn straight lying, What food is this for the darkly flying Fowls of the Afterwards! White bread afloat on the waters, Cast out by the hand that scatters Food untowards, Will you come back when the tide turns? After many days? My heart yearns […]

WE are out on the open road. Through the low west window a cold light flows On the floor where never my numb feet trode Before; onward the strange road goes. Soon the spaces of the western sky With shutters of sombre cloud will close. But we’ll still be together, this road and I, Together, […]

THE TOWN has opened to the sun. Like a flat red lily with a million petals She unfolds, she comes undone. A sharp sky brushes upon The myriad glittering chimney-tips As she gently exhales to the sun. Hurrying creatures run Down the labyrinth of the sinister flower. What is it they shun? A dark bird […]

Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed Into awe. No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed Vibration to draw Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed. A crow floats past on level wings Noiselessly. Uninterrupted silence swings Invisibly, inaudibly To and fro in our misgivings. We do not look […]

LONDON Used to wear her lights splendidly, Flinging her shawl-fringe over the River, Tassels in abandon. And up in the sky A two-eyed clock, like an owl Solemnly used to approve, chime, chiming, Approval, goggle-eyed fowl. There are no gleams on the River, No goggling clock; No sound from St. Stephen’s; No lamp-fringed frock. Instead, […]

DOWN the stone stairs Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion up at me. And I smile. Ladies Stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet Peer anxiously forth, as if for a boat to carry them out of the wreckage, And among the wreck of […]

THE chime of the bells, and the church clock striking eight Solemnly and distinctly cries down the babel of children still playing in the hay. The church draws nearer upon us, gentle and great In shadow, covering us up with her grey. Like drowsy children the houses fall asleep Under the fleece of shadow, as […]

THE NIGHT turns slowly round, Swift trains go by in a rush of light; Slow trains steal past. This train beats anxiously, outward bound. But I am not here. I am away, beyond the scope of this turning; There, where the pivot is, the axis Of all this gear. I, who sit in tears, I, […]

A Review in Hyde Park 1913. The Crowd Watches. WHERE the trees rise like cliffs, proud and blue-tinted in the distance, Between the cliffs of the trees, on the grey-green park Rests a still line of soldiers, red motionless range of guards Smouldering with darkened busbies beneath the bayonets’ slant rain. Colossal in nearness a […]

THE cool of an oak’s unchequered shade Falls on me as I lie in deep grass Which rushes upward, blade beyond blade, While higher the darting grass-flowers pass Piercing the blue with their crocketed spires And waving flags, and the ragged fires Of the sorrel’s cresset–a green, brave town Vegetable, new in renown. Over the […]

A young man came out of the Victoria station, looking undecidedly at the taxi-cabs, dark-red and black, pressing against the kerb under the glass-roof. Several men in greatcoats and brass buttons jerked themselves erect to catch his attention, at the same time keeping an eye on the other people as they filtered through the open […]

Flame-lurid his face as he turned among the throng of flame-lit and dark faces upon the platform. In the light of the furnace she caught sight of his drifting countenance, like a piece of floating fire. And the nostalgia, the doom of homecoming went through her veins like a drug. His eternal face, flame-lit now! […]

Isabel Pervin was listening for two sounds–for the sound of wheels on the drive outside and for the noise of her husband’s footsteps in the hall. Her dearest and oldest friend, a man who seemed almost indispensable to her living, would drive up in the rainy dusk of the closing November day. The trap had […]

A man got down from the motor-omnibus that runs from Penzance to St Just-in-Penwith, and turned northwards, uphill towards the Polestar. It was only half past six, but already the stars were out, a cold little wind was blowing from the sea, and the crystalline, three-pulse flash of the lighthouse below the cliffs beat rhythmically […]

The Pottery House was a square, ugly, brick house girt in by the wall that enclosed the whole grounds of the pottery itself. To be sure, a privet hedge partly masked the house and its ground from the pottery-yard and works: but only partly. Through the hedge could be seen the desolate yard, and the […]

There is in the Midlands a single-line tramway system which boldly leaves the county town and plunges off into the black, industrial countryside, up hill and down dale, through the long ugly villages of workmen’s houses, over canals and railways, past churches perched high and nobly over the smoke and shadows, through stark, grimy cold […]

I WISH it were spring in the world. Let it be spring! Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap! Come, rush of creation! Come, life! surge through this mass of mortification! Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first-flowers, which are rather last-flowers! Come, thaw down their cool portentousness, dissolve them: snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of white […]

He was working on the edge of the common, beyond the small brook that ran in the dip at the bottom of the garden, carrying the garden path in continuation from the plank bridge on to the common. He had cut the rough turf and bracken, leaving the grey, dryish soil bare. But he was […]

I A WOMAN has given me strength and affluence. Admitted! All the rocking wheat of Canada, ripening now, has not so much of strength as the body of one woman sweet in ear, nor so much to give though it feed nations. Hunger is the very Satan. The fear of hunger is Moloch, Belial, the […]

THE plane leaves fall black and wet on the lawn; The cloud sheaves in heaven’s fields set droop and are drawn in falling seeds of rain; the seed of heaven on my face falling–I hear again like echoes even that softly pace Heaven’s muffled floor, the winds that tread out all the grain of tears, […]

I AND so I cross into another world shyly and in homage linger for an invitation from this unknown that I would trespass on. I am very glad, and all alone in the world, all alone, and very glad, in a new world where I am disembarked at last. I could cry with joy, because […]

IT is not long since, here among all these folk in London, I should have held myself of no account whatever, but should have stood aside and made them way thinking that they, perhaps, had more right than I–for who was I? Now I see them just the same, and watch them. But of what […]

I HAVE found a place of loneliness Lonelier than Lyonesse Lovelier than Paradise; Full of sweet stillness That no noise can transgress Never a lamp distress. The full moon sank in state. I saw her stand and wait For her watchers to shut the gate. Then I found myself in a wonderland All of shadow […]

THE great gold apples of night Hang from the street’s long bough Dripping their light On the faces that drift below, On the faces that drift and blow Down the night-time, out of sight In the wind’s sad sough. The ripeness of these apples of night Distilling over me Makes sickening the white Ghost-flux of […]

GOLD, with an innermost speck Of silver, singing afloat Beneath the night, Like balls of thistle-down Wandering up and down Over the whispering town Seeking where to alight! Slowly, above the street Above the ebb of feet Drifting in flight; Still, in the purple distance The gold of their strange persistence As they cross and […]

SHE said as well to me: “Why are you ashamed? That little bit of your chest that shows between the gap of your shirt, why cover it up? Why shouldn’t your legs and your good strong thighs be rough and hairy?–I’m glad they are like that. You are shy, you silly, you silly shy thing. […]

THE listless beauty of the hour When snow fell on the apple trees And the wood-ash gathered in the fire And we faced our first miseries. Then the sweeping sunshine of noon When the mountains like chariot cars Were ranked to blue battle–and you and I Counted our scars. And then in a strange, grey […]

NOT I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time. If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me! If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift! If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself […]

THROUGH the strait gate of passion, Between the bickering fire Where flames of fierce love tremble On the body of fierce desire: To the intoxication, The mind, fused down like a bead, Flees in its agitation The flames’ stiff speed: At last to calm incandescence, Burned clean by remorseless hate, Now, at the day’s renascence […]

I DON’T care whether I am beautiful to you You other women. Nothing of me that you see is my own; A man balances, bone unto bone Balances, everything thrown In the scale, you other women. You may look and say to yourselves, I do Not show like the rest. My face may not please […]

AH, through the open door Is there an almond tree Aflame with blossom! –Let us fight no more. Among the pink and blue Of the sky and the almond flowers A sparrow flutters. –We have come through, It is really spring!–See, When he thinks himself alone How he bullies the flowers. –Ah, you and me […]

You shadow and flame, You interchange, You death in the game! Now I gather you up, Now I put you back Like a poppy in its cup. And so, you are a maid Again, my darling, but new, Unafraid. My love, my blossom, a child Almost! The flower in the bud Again, undefiled. And yet, […]

THIS fireglow is a red womb In the night, where you’re folded up On your doom. And the ugly, brutal years Are dissolving out of you, And the stagnant tears. I the great vein that leads From the night to the source of you, Which the sweet blood feeds. New phase in the germ of […]

WHY do you spurt and sprottle like that, bunny? Why should I want to throttle you, bunny? Yes, bunch yourself between my knees and lie still. Lie on me with a hot, plumb, live weight, heavy as a stone, passive, yet hot, waiting. What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? What is […]

Now you are mine, to-night at last I say it; You’re a dove I have bought for sacrifice, And to-night I slay it. Here in my arms my naked sacrifice! Death, do you hear, in my arms I am bringing My offering, bought at great price. She’s a silvery dove worth more than all I’ve […]

THERE are only two things now, The great black night scooped out And this fire-glow. This fire-glow, the core, And we the two ripe pips That are held in store. Listen, the darkness rings As it circulates round our fire. Take off your things. Your shoulders, your bruised throat Your breasts, your nakedness! This fiery […]

PLEASE yourself how you have it. Take my words, and fling Them down on the counter roundly; See if they ring. Sift my looks and expressions, And see what proportion there is Of sand in my doubtful sugar Of verities. Have a real stock-taking Of my manly breast; Find out if I’m sound or bankrupt, […]

TAKE off your cloak and your hat And your shoes, and draw up at my hearth Where never woman sat. I have made the fire up bright; Let us leave the rest in the dark And sit by firelight. The wine is warm in the hearth; The flickers come and go. I will warm your […]

AND because you love me think you you do not hate me? Ha, since you love me to ecstasy it follows you hate me to ecstasy. Because when you hear me go down the road outside the house you must come to the window to watch me go, do you think it is pure worship? […]

THEY are chanting now the service of All the Dead And the village folk outside in the burying ground Listen–except those who strive with their dead, Reaching out in anguish, yet unable quite to touch them: Those villagers isolated at the grave Where the candles burn in the daylight, and the painted wreaths Are propped […]

AH yes, I know you well, a sojourner At the hearth; I know right well the marriage ring you wear, And what it’s worth. The angels came to Abraham, and they stayed In his house awhile; So you to mine, I imagine; yes, happily Condescend to be vile. I see you all the time, you […]

ALONG the avenue of cypresses All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices Of linen go the chanting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . . And all along the path to the cemetery The round dark heads of men crowd silently, And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully Watch at the banner […]

THE yellow sun steps over the mountain-top And falters a few short steps across the lake– Are you awake? See, glittering on the milk-blue, morning lake They are laying the golden racing-track of the sun; The day has begun. The sun is in my eyes, I must get up. I want to go, there’s a […]

GREEN star Sirius Dribbling over the lake; The stars have gone so far on their road, Yet we’re awake! Without a sound The new young year comes in And is half-way over the lake. We must begin Again. This love so full Of hate has hurt us so, We lie side by side Moored–but no, […]

HUSH then why do you cry? It’s you and me the same as before. If you hear a rustle it’s only a rabbit gone back to his hole in a bustle. If something stirs in the branches overhead, it will be a squirrel moving uneasily, disturbed by the stress of our loving. Why should you […]

I COME, my little one, closer up against me, Creep right up, with your round head pushed in my breast. How I love all of you! Do you feel me wrap you Up with myself and my warmth, like a flame round the wick? And how I am not at all, except a flame that […]

PATIENCE, little Heart. One day a heavy, June-hot woman Will enter and shut the door to stay. And when your stifling heart would summon Cool, lonely night, her roused breasts will keep the night at bay, Sitting in your room like two tiger-lilies Flaming on after sunset, Destroying the cool, lonely night with the glow […]

AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces, Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant groom, Wounding themselves against her, denying her fecund embraces.

WHY does the thin grey strand Floating up from the forgotten Cigarette between my fingers, Why does it trouble me? Ah, you will understand; When I carried my mother downstairs, A few times only, at the beginning Of her soft-foot malady, I should find, for a reprimand To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs […]

I LISTEN to the stillness of you, My dear, among it all; I feel your silence touch my words as I talk, And take them in thrall. My words fly off a forge The length of a spark; I see the night-sky easily sip them Up in the dark. The lark sings loud and glad, […]

SINCE I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near, And I am of it, the small sharp stars are quite near, The white moon going among them like a white bird among snow-berries, And the sound of her gently rustling in heaven like a bird I hear. And I am willing to come […]

THE pain of loving you Is almost more than I can bear. I walk in fear of you. The darkness starts up where You stand, and the night comes through Your eyes when you look at me. Ah never before did I see The shadows that live in the sun! Now every tall glad tree […]

THE dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between. She opened her eyes, and green They shone, clear like flowers undone For the first time, now for the first time seen. ICKING

A THICK mist-sheet lies over the broken wheat. I walk up to my neck in mist, holding my mouth up. Across there, a discoloured moon burns itself out. I hold the night in horror; I dare not turn round. To-night I have left her alone. They would have it I have left her for ever. […]

I HAVE been so innerly proud, and so long alone, Do not leave me, or I shall break. Do not leave me. What should I do if you were gone again So soon? What should I look for? Where should I go? What should I be, I myself, “I”? What would it mean, this I? […]

You have come your way, I have come my way; You have stepped across your people, carelessly, hurting them all; I have stepped across my people, and hurt them in spite of my care. But steadily, surely, and notwithstanding We have come our ways and met at last Here in this upper room. Here the […]

A BLOTCH of pallor stirs beneath the high Square picture-dusk, the window of dark sky. A sound subdued in the darkness: tears! As if a bird in difficulty up the valley steers. “Why have you gone to the window? Why don’t you sleep? How you have wakened me! But why, why do you weep?” “I […]

THE pale bubbles The lovely pale-gold bubbles of the globe-flowers In a great swarm clotted and single Went rolling in the dusk towards the river To where the sunset hung its wan gold cloths; And you stood alone, watching them go, And that mother-love like a demon drew you from me Towards England. Along the […]

IN front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow; And between us and it, the thunder; And down below in the green wheat, the labourers Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat. You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals, And through the scent of the […]

No, now I wish the sunshine would stop, and the white shining houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out between two valves of darkness; the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound obliterating everything. I wish that whatever props up the walls of […]

FIRST PART UPON her plodding palfrey With a heavy child at her breast And Joseph holding the bridle They mount to the last hill-crest. Dissatisfied and weary She sees the blade of the sea Dividing earth and heaven In a glitter of ecstasy. Sudden a dark-faced stranger With his back to the sun, holds out […]

THE night was a failure but why not–? In the darkness with the pale dawn seething at the window through the black frame I could not be free, not free myself from the past, those others– and our love was a confusion, there was a horror, you recoiled away from me. Now, in the morning […]

MY love lies underground With her face upturned to mine, And her mouth unclosed in a last long kiss That ended her life and mine. I dance at the Christmas party Under the mistletoe Along with a ripe, slack country lass Jostling to and fro. The big, soft country lass, Like a loose sheaf of […]

You, you are all unloving, loveless, you; Restless and lonely, shaken by your own moods, You are celibate and single, scorning a comrade even, Threshing your own passions with no woman for the threshing-floor, Finishing your dreams for your own sake only, Playing your great game around the world, alone, Without playmate, or helpmate, having […]

AH God, life, law, so many names you keep, You great, you patient Effort, and you Sleep That does inform this various dream of living, You sleep stretched out for ever, ever giving Us out as dreams, you august Sleep Coursed round by rhythmic movement of all time, The constellations, your great heart, the sun […]

IT is Isis the mystery Must be in love with me. Here this round ball of earth Where all the mountains sit Solemn in groups, And the bright rivers flit Round them for girth. Here the trees and troops Darken the shining grass, And many people pass Plundered from heaven, Many bright people pass, Plunder […]

THE stars that open and shut Fall on my shallow breast Like stars on a pool. The soft wind, blowing cool Laps little crest after crest Of ripples across my breast. And dark grass under my feet Seems to dabble in me Like grass in a brook. Oh, and it is sweet To be all […]

AND who has seen the moon, who has not seen Her rise from out the chamber of the deep, Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw Confession of delight upon the wave, Littering the waves with her own superscription Of bliss, till all her lambent […]

After much struggling and loss in love and in the world of man, the protagonist throws in his lot with a woman who is already married. Together they go into another country, she perforce leaving her children behind. The conflict of love and hate goes on between the man and the woman, and between these […]

OUT of the darkness, fretted sometimes in its sleeping, Jets of sparks in fountains of blue come leaping To sight, revealing a secret, numberless secrets keeping. Sometimes the darkness trapped within a wheel Runs into speed like a dream, the blue of the steel Showing the rocking darkness now a-reel. And out of the invisible, […]

WHEN you went, how was it you carried with you My missal book of fine, flamboyant hours? My book of turrets and of red-thorn bowers, And skies of gold, and ladies in bright tissue? Now underneath a blue-grey twilight, heaped Beyond the withering snow of the shorn fields Stands rubble of stunted houses; all is […]

THE darkness steals the forms of all the queens, But oh, the palms of his two black hands are red, Inflamed with binding up the sheaves of dead Hours that were once all glory and all queens. And I remember all the sunny hours Of queens in hyacinth and skies of gold, And morning singing […]

SINCE I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near, And I am of it, the small sharp stars are quite near, The white moon going among them like a white bird among snow-berries, And the sound of her gently rustling in heaven like a bird I hear. And I am willing to come […]

MOURNFULLY to and fro, to and fro the trees are waving; What did you say, my dear? The rain-bruised leaves are suddenly shaken, as a child Asleep still shakes in the clutch of a sob– Yes, my love, I hear. One lonely bell, one only, the storm-tossed afternoon is braving, Why not let it ring? […]

I LOOK at the swaling sunset And wish I could go also Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar. I wish that I could go Through the red doors where I could put off My shame like shoes in the porch, My pain like garments, And leave my flesh discarded lying Like luggage of […]

SHE bade me follow to her garden, where The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup Between the old grey walls; I did not dare To raise my face, I did not dare look up, Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in My windows of discovery, and shrill “Sin.” So with a downcast […]

THE earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide. I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting Me who am issued […]

THE shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path, Frail as a scar upon the pale blue sky, Draws towards the downward slope; some sorrow hath Worn her down to the quick, so she faintly fares Along her foot-searched way without knowing why She creeps persistent down the sky’s long stairs. Some say they see, though […]

I WONDER if with you, as it is with me, If under your slipping words, that easily flow About you as a garment, easily, Your violent heart beats to and fro! Long have I waited, never once confessed, Even to myself, how bitter the separation; Now, being come again, how make the best reparation? If […]

REJECT me not if I should say to you I do forget the sounding of your voice, I do forget your eyes that searching through The mists perceive our marriage, and rejoice. Yet, when the apple-blossom opens wide Under the pallid moonlight’s fingering, I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide My eyes […]

ROUND clouds roll in the arms of the wind, The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky, And see, where the budding hazels are thinned, The wild anemones lie In undulating shivers beneath the wind. Over the blue of the waters ply White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud; And, look you, floating […]

HOLLOW rang the house when I knocked on the door, And I lingered on the threshold with my hand Upraised to knock and knock once more: Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor, Hollow re-echoed my heart. The low-hung lamps stretched down the road With shadows drifting underneath, With a music of […]

CLOSE your eyes, my love, let me make you blind; They have taught you to see Only a mean arithmetic on the face of things, A cunning algebra in the faces of men, And God like geometry Completing his circles, and working cleverly. I’ll kiss you over the eyes till I kiss you blind; If […]

I WONDER, can the night go by; Can this shot arrow of travel fly Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky Of a dawned to-morrow, Without ever sleep delivering us From each other, or loosing the dolorous Unfruitful sorrow! What is it then that you can see That at the window endlessly You watch the […]

HAD I but known yesterday, Helen, you could discharge the ache Out of the cloud; Had I known yesterday you could take The turgid electric ache away, Drink it up with your proud White body, as lovely white lightning Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth, I might have hated you, Helen. But […]

HER tawny eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness, Hardened they are like gems in ancient modesty; Yea, and her mouth’s prudent and crude caress Means even less than her many words to me. Though her kiss betrays me also this, this only Consolation, that in her lips her blood at climax clips Two wild, dumb paws […]

THIS spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze […]

MANY years have I still to burn, detained Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps contained In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine. And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of life, What matter the stuff I lick […]

WHEN along the pavement, Palpitating flames of life, People flicker round me, I forget my bereavement, The gap in the great constellation, The place where a star used to be. Nay, though the pole-star Is blown out like a candle, And all the heavens are wandering in disarray, Yet when pleiads of people are Deployed […]

A BIG bud of moon hangs out of the twilight, Star-spiders spinning their thread Hang high suspended, withouten respite Watching us overhead. Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths Curtain us in so dark That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s Flitting remark. Here in this swarthy, secret tent, Where black boughs flap […]

THE moon is broken in twain, and half a moon Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky; The other half of the broken coin of troth Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie. They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away; I had […]

How many times, like lotus lilies risen Upon the surface of a river, there Have risen floating on my blood the rare Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison. So I am clothed all over with the light And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion; Till naked for her in the finest fashion The flowers […]

THE sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane, As a little wind comes in. The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd Scooped out and dry, where a spider, Folded in its legs as in a […]

A YELLOW leaf from the darkness Hops like a frog before me. Why should I start and stand still? I was watching the woman that bore me Stretched in the brindled darkness Of the sick-room, rigid with will To die: and the quick leaf tore me Back to this rainy swill Of leaves and lamps […]

SINCE you did depart Out of my reach, my darling, Into the hidden, I see each shadow start With recognition, and I Am wonder-ridden. I am dazed with the farewell, But I scarcely feel your loss. You left me a gift Of tongues, so the shadows tell Me things, and silences toss Me their drift. […]

I LISTEN to the stillness of you, My dear, among it all; I feel your silence touch my words as I talk, And take them in thrall. My words fly off a forge The length of a spark; I see the night-sky easily sip them Up in the dark. The lark sings loud and glad, […]

THE acrid scents of autumn, Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn And the snore of the night in my ear. For suddenly, flush-fallen, All my life, in a rush Of shedding away, has left me Naked, exposed on the bush. I, on the bush of the globe, Like a […]

THE pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter; While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters. Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede, Winding about their dimness the mist’s grey cerements, after The street lamps in the […]

Too far away, oh love, I know, To save me from this haunted road, Whose lofty roses break and blow On a night-sky bent with a load Of lights: each solitary rose, Each arc-lamp golden does expose Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows Night blenched with a thousand snows. Of hawthorn and of lilac […]

MY love looks like a girl to-night, But she is old. The plaits that lie along her pillow Are not gold, But threaded with filigree, And uncanny cold. She looks like a young maiden, since her brow Is smooth and fair, Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed, She sleeps a rare Still […]

MY little love, my darling, You were a doorway to me; You let me out of the confines Into this strange countrie, Where people are crowded like thistles, Yet are shapely and comely to see. My little love, my dearest Twice have you issued me, Once from your womb, sweet mother, Once from myself, to […]

I HAVE fetched the tears up out of the little wells, Scooped them up with small, iron words, Dripping over the runnels. The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys Glitter and spill. Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came Hovering about […]

IF I could have put you in my heart, If but I could have wrapped you in myself, How glad I should have been! And now the chart Of memory unrolls again to me The course of our journey here, before we had to part. And oh, that you had never, never been Some of […]

As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears And laid against her cheek; Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk. My sleeping baby hangs upon my life, […]

THE hoar-frost crumbles in the sun, The crisping steam of a train Melts in the air, while two black birds Sweep past the window again. Along the vacant road, a red Bicycle approaches; I wait In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy To leap down at our gate. He has passed us by; but […]

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, Lamps in a wash of rain! Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard, Oh tears on the window pane! Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, Full of disappointment and of rain, Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow […]

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at the night, Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into sight, Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into the light of the room. I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light, And be out in the bewildering […]

A WIND comes from the north Blowing little flocks of birds Like spray across the town, And a train, roaring forth, Rushes stampeding down With cries and flying curds Of steam, out of the darkening north. Whither I turn and set Like a needle steadfastly, Waiting ever to get The news that she is free; […]

YOURS is the shame and sorrow But the disgrace is mine; Your love was dark and thorough, Mine was the love of the sun for a flower He creates with his shine. I was diligent to explore you, Blossom you stalk by stalk, Till my fire of creation bore you Shrivelling down in the final […]

Now I am all One bowl of kisses, Such as the tall Slim votaresses Of Egypt filled For a God’s excesses. I lift to you My bowl of kisses, And through the temple’s Blue recesses Cry out to you In wild caresses. And to my lips’ Bright crimson rim The passion slips, And down my […]

IT is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to the pane, The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging with flattened leaves; The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow gloom that stains The class; over them all the dark net of my discipline weaves. It is no good, dear, gentleness and […]

A FAINT, sickening scent of irises Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table A fine proud spike of purple irises Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable To see the class’s lifted and bended faces Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable. I can smell the gorgeous […]

YESTERDAY the fields were only grey with scattered snow, And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge; Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge. I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky; But she’s waiting, […]

WHEN the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind, They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water; And the sight of their white play among the grass Is like a little robin’s song, winsome, Or as two white butterflies settle […]

MY world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm; An endless tapestry the past has woven drapes The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform. The surface of dreams is broken, The picture of the past is shaken and scattered. Fluent, active figures of men […]

ALWAYS, sweetheart, Carry into your room the blossoming boughs of cherry, Almond and apple and pear diffuse with light, that very Soon strews itself on the floor; and keep the radiance of spring Fresh quivering; keep the sunny-swift March-days waiting In a little throng at your door, and admit the one who is plaiting Her […]

I HAVE opened the window to warm my hands on the sill Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone. The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine, Like savage music striking far off, […]

SEE the stars, love, In the water much clearer and brighter Than those above us, and whiter, Like nenuphars. Star-shadows shine, love, How many stars in your bowl? How many shadows in your soul, Only mine, love, mine? When I move the oars, love, See how the stars are tossed, Distorted, the brightest lost. –So […]

THE five old bells Are hurrying and eagerly calling, Imploring, protesting They know, but clamorously falling Into gabbling incoherence, never resting, Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping. The silver moon That somebody has spun so high To settle the question, yes or no, has caught In […]

OUTSIDE the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips, And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship’s Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously. Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound Of […]

Now and again All my body springs alive, And the life that is polarised in my eyes, That quivers between my eyes and mouth, Flies like a wild thing across my body, Leaving my eyes half-empty, and clamorous, Filling my still breasts with a flush and a flame, Gathering the soft ripples below my breasts […]

THIS is the last of all, this is the last! I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire, I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross, Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my past Fusing to one dead mass in the sinking fire Where the ash on […]

THE quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping, Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame; Above them, exultant, the pee-wits are sweeping: They are lords of the desolate wastes of sadness their screamings proclaim. Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie Low-rounded on the mournful grass they have bitten down to the quick. Are they asleep?–Are […]

SOMEWHERE the long mellow note of the blackbird Quickens the unclasping hands of hazel, Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back, Stirred by an impetuous wind. Some ways’ll All be sweet with white and blue violet. (Hush now, hush. Where am I?–Biuret–) On the green wood’s edge a shy girl hovers From out of the […]

ON that day I shall put roses on roses, and cover your grave With multitude of white roses: and since you were brave One bright red ray. So people, passing under The ash-trees of the valley-road, will raise Their eyes and look at the grave on the hill, in wonder, Wondering mount, and put the […]

I WILL give you all my keys, You shall be my chatelaine, You shall enter as you please, As you please shall go again. When I hear you jingling through All the chambers of my soul, How I sit and laugh at you In your vain housekeeping role. Jealous of the smallest cover, Angry at […]

WHERE the minnows trace A glinting web quick hid in the gloom of the brook, When I think of the place And remember the small lad lying intent to look Through the shadowy face At the little fish thread-threading the watery nook– It seems to me The woman you are should be nixie, there is […]

THE sun sets out the autumn crocuses And fills them up a pouring measure Of death-producing wine, till treasure Runs waste down their chalices. All, all Persephone’s pale cups of mould Are on the board, are over-filled; The portion to the gods is spilled; Now, mortals all, take hold! The time is now, the wine-cup […]

FAR-OFF the lily-statues stand white-ranked in the garden at home. Would God they were shattered quickly, the cattle would tread them out in the loam. I wish the elder trees in flower could suddenly heave, and burst The walls of the house, and nettles puff out from the hearth at which I was nursed. It […]

THE trees in trouble because of autumn, And scarlet berries falling from the bush, And all the myriad houseless seeds Loosing hold in the wind’s insistent push Moan softly with autumnal parturition, Poor, obscure fruits extruded out of light Into the world of shadow, carried down Between the bitter knees of the after-night. Bushed in […]

I INTO the shadow-white chamber silts the white Flux of another dawn. The wind that all night Long has waited restless, suddenly wafts A whirl like snow from the plum-trees and the pear, Till petals heaped between the window-shafts In a drift die there. A nurse in white, at the dawning, flower-foamed pane Draws down […]

ROUND the house were lilacs and strawberries And foal-foots spangling the paths, And far away on the sand-hills, dewberries Caught dust from the sea’s long swaths. Up the wolds the woods were walking, And nuts fell out of their hair. At the gate the nets hung, balking The star-lit rush of a hare. In the […]

RETURNING, I find her just the same, At just the same old delicate game. Still she says: “Nay, loose no flame To lick me up and do me harm! Be all yourself!–for oh, the charm Of your heart of fire in which I look! Oh, better there than in any book Glow and enact the […]

SHE sits on the recreation ground Under an oak whose yellow buds dot the pale blue sky. The young grass twinkles in the wind, and the sound Of the wind in the knotted buds in a canopy. So sitting under the knotted canopy Of the wind, she is lifted and carried away as in a […]

SINCE this is the last night I keep you home, Come, I will consecrate you for the journey. Rather I had you would not go. Nay come, I will not again reproach you. Lie back And let me love you a long time ere you go. For you are sullen-hearted still, and lack The will […]

WHO do you think stands watching The snow-tops shining rosy In heaven, now that the darkness Takes all but the tallest posy? Who then sees the two-winged Boat down there, all alone And asleep on the snow’s last shadow, Like a moth on a stone? The olive-leaves, light as gad-flies, Have all gone dark, gone […]

IN another country, black poplars shake them- selves over a pond, And rooks and the rising smoke-waves scatter and wheel from the works beyond; The air is dark with north and with sulphur, the grass is a darker green, And people darkly invested with purple move palpable through the scene. Soundlessly down across the counties, […]

I AH, stern, cold man, How can you lie so relentless hard While I wash you with weeping water! Do you set your face against the daughter Of life? Can you never discard Your curt pride’s ban? You masquerader! How can you shame to act this part Of unswerving indifference to me? You want at […]

WAVING slowly before me, pushed into the dark, Unseen my hands explore the silence, drawing the bark Of my body slowly behind. Nothing to meet my fingers but the fleece of night Invisible blinding my face and my eyes! What if in their flight My hands should touch the door! What if I suddenly stumble, […]

How different, in the middle of snows, the great school rises red! A red rock silent and shadowless, clung round with clusters of shouting lads, Some few dark-cleaving the doorway, souls that cling as the souls of the dead In stupor persist at the gates of life, obstinate dark monads. This new red rock in […]

BEFORE THE WAR THE night rain, dripping unseen, Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands. The river, slipping between Lamps, is rayed with golden bands Half way down its heaving sides; Revealed where it hides. Under the bridge Great electric cars Sing through, and each with a floor-light racing along at its side. Far […]

THE frost has settled down upon the trees And ruthlessly strangled off the fantasies Of leaves that have gone unnoticed, swept like old Romantic stories now no more to be told. The trees down the boulevard stand naked in thought, Their abundant summery wordage silenced, caught In the grim undertow; naked the trees confront Implacable […]

How have I wandered here to this vaulted room In the house of life?–the floor was ruffled with gold Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom, Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight unfold For the flush of the night; whereas now the gloom Of every dirty, must-besprinkled mould, And damp old […]

DARKNESS comes out of the earth And swallows dip into the pallor of the west; From the hay comes the clamour of children’s mirth; Wanes the old palimpsest. The night-stock oozes scent, And a moon-blue moth goes flittering by: All that the worldly day has meant Wastes like a lie. The children have forsaken their […]

RIGID sleeps the house in darkness, I alone Like a thing unwarrantable cross the hall And climb the stairs to find the group of doors Standing angel-stern and tall. I want my own room’s shelter. But what is this Throng of startled beings suddenly thrown In confusion against my entry? Is it only the trees’ […]

BEFORE THE WAR BY the river In the black wet night as the furtive rain slinks down, Dropping and starting from sleep Alone on a seat A woman crouches. I must go back to her. I want to give her Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of her gown Asleep. My fingers […]

IN the choir the boys are singing the hymn. The morning light on their lips Moves in silver-moist flashes, in musical trim. Sudden outside the high window, one crow Hangs in the air And lights on a withered oak-tree’s top of woe. One bird, one blot, folded and still at the top Of the withered […]

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery […]

SAD as he sits on the white sea-stone And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon, And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and the boulders. He sits like a shade by the flood alone While I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the croon Of my mockery mocks at him […]

WHEN into the night the yellow light is roused like dust above the towns, Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool in the midst of the downs, Our faces flower for a little hour pale and uncertain along the street, Daisies that waken all mistaken white-spread in expectancy to meet […]

MANY roses in the wind Are tapping at the window-sash. A hawk is in the sky; his wings Slowly begin to plash. The roses with the west wind rapping Are torn away, and a splash Of red goes down the billowing air. Still hangs the hawk, with the whole sky moving Past him–only a wing-beat […]

THE houses fade in a melt of mist Blotching the thick, soiled air With reddish places that still resist The Night’s slow care. The hopeless, wintry twilight fades, The city corrodes out of sight As the body corrodes when death invades That citadel of delight. Now verdigris smoulderings softly spread Through the shroud of the […]

You, if you were sensible, When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful, You would not turn and answer me “The night is wonderful.” Even you, if you knew How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to distinguish What hurts, from […]

THE cuckoo and the coo-dove’s ceaseless calling, calling, Of a meaningless monotony is palling All my morning’s pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered wood. May-blossom and blue bird’s-eye flowers falling, falling In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling Messages of true-love down the dust of the high-road. I do not like to hear the gentle […]

I, THE man with the red scarf, Will give thee what I have, this last week’s earnings. Take them, and buy thee a silver ring And wed me, to ease my yearnings. For the rest, when thou art wedded I’ll wet my brow for thee With sweat, I’ll enter a house for thy sake, Thou […]

How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspur cleaving All with a flash of blue!–when will she be leaving Her room, where the night still hangs like a half- folded bat, And passion unbearable seethes in the darkness, like must in a vat.

O STIFFLY shapen houses that change not, What conjuror’s cloth was thrown across you, and raised To show you thus transfigured, changed, Your stuff all gone, your menace almost rased? Such resolute shapes, so harshly set In hollow blocks and cubes deformed, and heaped In void and null profusion, how is this? In what strong […]

Before the War WE have shut the doors behind us, and the velvet flowers of night Lean about us scattering their pollen grains of golden light. Now at last we lift our faces, and our faces come aflower To the night that takes us willing, liberates us to the hour. Now at last the ink […]

LAST night a thief came to me And struck at me with something dark. I cried, but no one could hear me, I lay dumb and stark. When I awoke this morning I could find no trace; Perhaps ’twas a dream of warning, For I’ve lost my peace.

THE clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowly northward to you, While north of them all, at the farthest ends, stands one bright-bosomed, aglance With fire as it guards the wild north cloud-coasts, red-fire seas running through The rocks where ravens flying to windward melt as a well-shot lance. You should be out by the […]

YOU promised to send me some violets. Did you forget? White ones and blue ones from under the orchard hedge? Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for a pledge Of our early love that hardly has opened yet. Here there’s an almond tree–you have never seen Such a one in the north–it flowers on […]

THE new red houses spring like plants In level rows Of reddish herbage that bristles and slants Its square shadows. The pink young houses show one side bright Flatly assuming the sun, And one side shadow, half in sight, Half-hiding the pavement-run; Where hastening creatures pass intent On their level way, Threading like ants that […]

WHEN the wind blows her veil And uncovers her laughter I cease, I turn pale. When the wind blows her veil From the woes I bewail Of love and hereafter: When the wind blows her veil I cease, I turn pale.

THE glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping, Goes trembling past me up the College wall. Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping, The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall. Beyond the leaves that overhang the street, Along the flagged, clean pavement summer-white, Passes the world with shadows at their feet Going left and right. […]

LOVE has crept out of her sealed heart As a field-bee, black and amber, Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber Up the warm grass where the sunbeams start. Mischief has come in her dawning eyes, And a glint of coloured iris brings Such as lies along the folded wings Of the bee before he flies. […]

AND all hours long, the town Roars like a beast in a cave That is wounded there And like to drown; While days rush, wave after wave On its lair. An invisible woe unseals The flood, so it passes beyond All bounds: the great old city Recumbent roars as it feels The foamy paw of […]

WHEN I woke, the lake-lights were quivering on the wall, The sunshine swam in a shoal across and across, And a hairy, big bee hung over the primulas In the window, his body black fur, and the sound of him cross. There was something I ought to remember: and yet I did not remember. Why […]

There was thin, crisp snow on the ground, the sky was blue, the wind very cold, the air clear. Farmers were just turning out the cows for an hour or so in the midday, and the smell of cow-sheds was unendurable as I entered Tible. I noticed the ash-twigs up in the sky were pale […]

THE man and the maid go side by side With an interval of space between; And his hands are awkward and want to hide, She braves it out since she must be seen. When some one passes he drops his head Shading his face in his black felt hat, While the hard girl hardens; nothing […]

She speaks. Look at the little darlings in the corn! The rye is taller than you, who think yourself So high and mighty: look how the heads are borne Dark and proud on the sky, like a number of knights Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn. Knights indeed!–much knight I know will ride […]

As I went through the marshes a doe sprang out of the corn and flashed up the hill-side leaving her fawn. On the sky-line she moved round to watch, she pricked a fine black blotch on the sky. I looked at her and felt her watching; I became a strange being. Still, I had my […]

THE space of the world is immense, before me and around me; If I turn quickly, I am terrified, feeling space surround me; Like a man in a boat on very clear, deep water, space frightens and confounds me. I see myself isolated in the universe, and wonder What effect I can have. My hands […]

WHAT pain, to wake and miss you! To wake with a tightened heart, And mouth reaching forward to kiss you! This then at last is the dawn, and the bell Clanging at the farm! Such bewilderment Comes with the sight of the room, I cannot tell. It is raining. Down the half-obscure road Four labourers […]

THE house is silent, it is late at night, I am alone. From the balcony I can hear the Isar moan, Can see the white Rift of the river eerily, between the pines, under a sky of stone. Some fireflies drift through the middle air Tinily. I wonder where Ends this darkness that annihilates me.

I AM myself at last; now I achieve My very self. I, with the wonder mellow, Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear And single me, perfected from my fellow. Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving Its limpid sap to culmination, has brought Itself more sheer and naked out of the […]

I AM here myself; as though this heave of effort At starting other life, fulfilled my own: Rose-leaves that whirl in colour round a core Of seed-specks kindled lately and softly blown By all the blood of the rose-bush into being– Strange, that the urgent will in me, to set My mouth on hers in […]

THERE are four men mowing down by the Isar; I can hear the swish of the scythe-strokes, four Sharp breaths taken: yea, and I Am sorry for what’s in store. The first man out of the four that’s mowing Is mine, I claim him once and for all; Though it’s sorry I am, on his […]

WHEN she rises in the morning I linger to watch her; She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window And the sunbeams catch her Glistening white on the shoulders, While down her sides the mellow Golden shadow glows as She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts Sway like full-blown yellow Gloire de Dijon roses. […]

JUST a few of the roses we gathered from the Isar Are fallen, and their mauve-red petals on the cloth Float like boats on a river, while other Roses are ready to fall, reluctant and loth. She laughs at me across the table, saying I am beautiful. I look at the rumpled young roses And […]

BY the Isar, in the twilight We were wandering and singing, By the Isar, in the evening We climbed the huntsman’s ladder and sat swinging In the fir-tree overlooking the marshes, While river met with river, and the ringing Of their pale-green glacier water filled the evening. By the Isar, in the twilight We found […]