OCTOBER 31, 1889 +Zephyrou gigantos aura+ I Is it Midsummer here in the heavens that illumine October on earth?Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with desire of the days of his mirth,Redeem them, recall, or remember?For a memory recalling the rapture of earth, and redeeming the sky,Shines down from the heights to the […]

Summer, and noon, and a splendour of silence, felt,Seen, and heard of the spirit within the sense.Soft through the frondage the shades of the sunbeams melt,Sharp through the foliage the shafts of them, keen and dense,Cleave, as discharged from the string of the God’s bow, tenseAs a war-steed’s girth, and bright as a warrior’s belt.Ah, […]

TO THEODORE WATTS 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,Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life diviner than lives in words, Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim,Change and brighten […]

AFTER READING SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S ARCADIA IN THE GARDEN OF AN OLD ENGLISH MANOR HOUSE I A star in the silence that followsThe song of the death of the sunSpeaks music in heaven, and the hollowsAnd heights of the world are as one;One lyre that outsings and outlightensThe rapture of sunset, and thrillsMute night till […]

FOR THE FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE I Four hundred summers and fifty have shone on the meadows of Thames and diedSince Eton arose in an age that was darkness, and shone by hisradiant sideAs a star that the spell of a wise man’s word bade live and ascend […]

I Sea and strand, and a lordlier land than sea-tides rolling and rising sunClasp and lighten in climes that brighten with day when day that was here is done,Call aloud on their children, proud with trust that future and past are one. Far and near from the swan’s nest here the storm-birds bred of her […]

INSCRIBED TO MY MOTHER September, all glorious with gold, as a kingIn the radiance of triumph attired,Outlightening the summer, outsweetening the spring,Broods wide on the woodlands with limitless wing,A presence of all men desired. Far eastward and westward the sun-coloured landsSmile warm as the light on them smiles;And statelier than temples upbuilded with hands,Tall column […]

JANUARY Hail, January, that bearest hereOn snowbright breasts the babe-faced yearThat weeps and trembles to be born.Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.Thy forehead braves the storm’s bent bow,Thy feet enkindle stars of snow. FEBRUARY Wan February with weeping cheer,Whose cold hand […]

TO E. H. The dawn of night more fair than morning rose,Stars hurrying forth on stars, as snows on snowsHaste when the wind and winter bid them speed.Vague miles of moorland road behind us layScarce traversed ere the daySank, and the sun forsook us at our need,Belated. Where we thought to have rested, restWas none; […]

NOVEMBER 4, 1889 Somno mollior unda I Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.Love’s own self was the deep sea’s daughter,Fair and flawless from face to feet,Hailed of all when the world was golden,Loved of lovers whose names beholdenThrill men’s eyes as with light of oldenDays more glad than […]

I The clearest eyes in all the world they readWith sense more keen and spirit of sight more trueThan burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dewFlames, and absorbs the glory round it shed,As they the light of ages quick and dead,Closed now, forsake us: yet the shaft that slewCan slay not one of all […]

Sunset smiles on sunrise: east and west are one,Face to face in heaven before the sovereign sun.From the springs of the dawn everlasting a glory renews and transfigures the west,From the depths of the sunset a light as of morning enkindles the broad sea’s breast,And the lands and the skies and the waters are glad […]

Night or light is it now, whereinSleeps, shut out from the wild world’s din,Wakes, alive with a life more clear,One who found not on earth his kin? Sleep were sweet for awhile, were dearSurely to souls that were heartless here,Souls that faltered and flagged and fell,Soft of spirit and faint of cheer. A living soul […]

IN MEMORY OF THEODORE DE BANVILLE Death, a light outshining life, bids heaven resumeStar by star the souls whose light made earth divine.Death, a night outshining day, sees burn and bloomFlower by flower, and sun by sun, the fames that shineDeathless, higher than life beheld their sovereign sign.Dead Simonides of Ceos, late restored,Given again of […]

La plus douce des voix qui vibraient sous le cielSe tait: les rossignols ailes pleurent le frereQui s’envole au-dessus de l’apre et sombre terre,Ne lui laissant plus voir que l’etre essentiel, Esprit qui chante et rit, fleur d’une ame sans fiel.L’ombre elyseenne, ou la nuit n’est que lumiere,Revoit, tout revetu de splendeur douce et fiere,Melicerte, […]

OCTOBER 6, 1892 I Life, sublime and serene when time had power upon it and ruled its breath,Changed it, bade it be glad or sad, and hear what change in the world’s ear saith,Shines more fair in the starrier air whose glory lightens the dusk of death. Suns that sink on the wan sea’s brink, […]

NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1889 All the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead year’s glorious graveFast with seals of light and fire and cloud that light and fire illume,Glows at heart and kindles earth and heaven with joyous blush and bloom,Warm and wide as life, and glad of death that only slays to save.As a […]

AUGUST 6, 1891 I Love and praise, and a length of days whose shadow cast upon time is light,Days whose sound was a spell shed round from wheeling wings as of doves in flight,Meet in one, that the mounting sun to-day may triumph, and cast out night. Two years more than the full fourscore lay […]

The wider world of men that is not oursReceives a soul whose life on earth was light.Though darkness close the date of human hours,Love holds the spirit and sense of life in sight,That may not, even though death bid fly, take flight.Faith, love, and hope fulfilled with memory, seeAs clear and dear as life could […]

Dante, sole standing on the heavenward height,Beheld and heard one saying, “Behold me well:I am, I am Beatrice.” Heaven and hellKept silence, and the illimitable lightOf all the stars was darkness in his sightWhose eyes beheld her eyes again, and fellShame-stricken. Since her soul took flight to dwellIn heaven, six hundred years have taken flight. […]