Your voice is like bells over roofs at dawnWhen a bird fliesAnd the sky changes to a fresher color. Speak, speak, Beloved.Say little thingsFor my ears to catchAnd run with them to my heart.

The swans float and floatAlong the moatAround the Bishop’s garden,And the white clouds pushAcross a blue skyWith edges that seem to draw in and harden. Two slim men of white bronzeBeat each with a hammer on the end of a rodThe hours of God.Striking a bell,They do it well.And the echoes jump, and tinkle, and […]

Lilacs,False blue,White,Purple,Color of lilac,Your great puffs of flowersAre everywhere in this my New England.Among your heart-shaped leavesOrange orioles hop like music-box birds and singTheir little weak soft songs;In the crooks of your branchesThe bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggsPeer restlessly through the light and shadowOf all Springs.Lilacs in dooryardsHolding quiet conversations with […]

“Here we go round the ivy-bush,”And that’s a tune we all dance to.Little poet people snatching ivy,Trying to prevent one another from snatching ivy.If you get a leaf, there’s another for me;Look at the bush.But I want your leaf, Brother, and you mine,Therefore, of course, we push. “Here we go round the laurel-tree.”Do we want […]

I Again the larkspur,Heavenly blue in my garden.They, at least, unchanged. II How have I hurt you?You look at me with pale eyes,But these are my tears. III Morning and evening–Yet for us once long agoWas no division. IV I hear many words.Set an hour when I may comeOr remain silent. V In the ghostly […]

You–you–Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver;Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies;Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air. The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun;It is the hopping of birds upon a garden-path. As the perfume of jonquils, you come […]

Last night, at sunset,The foxgloves were like tall altar candles.Could I have lifted you to the roof of the greenhouse, my Dear,I should have understood their burning.