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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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; […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]