The sunburnt face in the willow shadeTo the face in the water-mirror said, “O deep mysterious face in the stream,Art thou myself or am I thy dream?” And the face deep down in the water’s sideTo the face in the upper air replied, “I am thy dream, them poor worn face,And this is thy heart’s […]

Love built a crimson house,I know it well,That he might have a homeWherein to dwell. Poor Love that roved so farAnd fared so ill,Between the morning starAnd the Hollow Hill, Before he found the valeWhere he could bide,With memory and oblivionSide by side. He took the silver dewAnd the dun red clay,And behold when he […]

I O Life, dear Life, in this fair houseLong since did I, it seems to me,In some mysterious doleful wayFall out of love with thee. For, Life, thou art become a ghost,A memory of days gone by,A poor forsaken thing betweenA heartache and a sigh. And now, with shadows from the hillsThronging the twilight, wraith […]

With the fall of the leaf comes the wolf, wolf, wolf,The old red wolf at my door.And my hateful yellow dwarf, with his hideous crooked laugh,Cries “Wolf, wolf, wolf!” at my door. With the still of the frost comes the wolf, wolf, wolf,The gaunt red wolf at my door.He’s as tall as a Great Dane, […]

The play is Life; and this round earth,The narrow stage whereonWe act before an audienceOf actors dead and gone. There is a figure in the wingsThat never goes away,And though I cannot see his face,I shudder while I play. His shadow looms behind me here,Or capers at my side;And when I mouth my lines in […]

Hack and Hew were the sons of GodIn the earlier earth than now;One at his right hand, one at his left,To obey as he taught them how. And Hack was blind and Hew was dumb,But both had the wild, wild heart;And God’s calm will was their burning will,And the gist of their toil was art. […]

Look how he throws them up and up,The beautiful golden balls!They hang aloft in the purple air,And there never is one that falls. He sends them hot from his steady hand,He teaches them all their curves;And whether the reach be little or long,There never is one that swerves. Some, like the tiny red one there,He […]

Softly, softly, Niccolo Amati!What can put such fancies in your head?There, go dream of your blue-skied Cremona,While I ponder something you have said. Something in that last low lovely cadencePiercing the green dusk alone and far,Named a new room in the house of knowledge,Waiting unfrequented, door ajar. While you dream then, let me unmolestedPass in […]

I cannot quite recallWhen first he came,So reticent and tall,With his eyes of flame. The neighbors used to say(They know so much!)He looked to them half waySpanish or Dutch. Outlandish certainlyHe is–and queer!He has been lodged with meThis thirty year; All the while (it seems absurd!)We hardly haveExchanged a single word.Mum as the grave! Minds […]

The tall carnations down the garden walksBowed on their stalks. Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods,“What are the oddsThat we shall wake up here within the sun,When time is done,And pick up all the treasures one by oneOur hands let fall in sleep?” “You have begunTo mutter in your dreams,”Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams,And they both slept again. […]

“Dustman, dustman!”Through the deserted square he cries,And babies put their rosy fistsInto their eyes. There’s nothing out of No-man’s-landSo drowsy since the world began,As “Dustman, dustman,Dustman.” He goes his village round at duskFrom door to door, from day to day;And when the children hear his stepThey stop their play. “Dustman, dustman!”Far up the street he […]

Out through the hills of midnight,Hurtling and thundering on,The night express from the outer worldSpeeds for the open of dawn. Out of the past and gloom-wrack,Out of the dim and yore,Freighted as train or caravanWas never freighted before; Built when the Sphinx’s queryWas new on the lips of peace;Hurled through the aching and hollow yearsTill […]

“Hospes comesque corporis,Quae nunc abitis in loca?” Cease, Wind, to blowAnd drive the peopled snow,And move the haunted arras to and fro,And moan of things I fear to knowYet would rend from thee, Wind, before I goOn the blind pilgrimage.Cease, Wind, to blow. Thy brother too,I leave no print of shoeIn all these vasty rooms […]

Brother, lost brother!Thou of mine ancient kin!Thou of the swift will that no ponderings smother!The dumb life in me fumbles out to the shadeThou lurkest in.In vain–evasive ever through the gladeDeparting footsteps fail;And only where the grasses have been pressed,Or by snapped twigs I follow a fruitless trail.So–give o’er the quest!Sprawl on the roots and […]

There paused to shut the doorA fellow called the Wind.With mystery before,And reticence behind, A portal waits me tooIn the glad house of spring,One day I shall pass throughAnd leave you wondering. It lies beyond the margeOf evening or of prime,Silent and dim and large,The gateway of all time. There troop by night and dayMy […]

April. You hearken, my fellow,Old slumberer down in my heart?There’s a whooping of ice in the rivers;The sap feels a start. The snow-melted torrents are brawling;The hills, orange-misted and blue,Are touched with the voice of the rainbirdUnsullied and new. The houses of frost are deserted,Their slumber is broken and done,And empty and pale are the […]

What is the stir in the street?Hurry of feet!And after,A sound as of pipes and of tabers! Men of the conflicts and labors,Struggling and shifting and shoving,Pushing and pounding your neighbors,Fighting for leeway for laughter,Toiling for leisure for loving!Hark, through the window and up to the rafter,Madder and merrier,Deeper and verier,Sweeter, contrarier,Dafter and dafter,A song […]

Over the shoulders and slopes of the duneI saw the white daisies go down to the sea,A host in the sunshine, an army in June,The people God sends us to set our heart free. The bobolinks rallied them up from the dell,The orioles whistled them out of the wood;And all of their singing was, “Earth, […]

Today, through your Easter marketIn the lazy Southern sun,I strolled with hands in pocketsPast the flower-stalls one by one. Indolent, dreamy, readyFor anything to amuse,Shyfoot out for a rambleIn his oldest hat and shoes. Roses creamy and yellow,Azaleas crimson and white,And the flaky fresh carnationsMy Orient of delight,– Masses and banks of blossomThat dazzle and […]

Dear Lilac, how enchantingTo hear of you this way!The Man who comes a-mouchingTo visit me each day Says you too have a loverFar lovelier than I.And from his rapt description,She loves you gloriously. The Man prowls out each morningTo see if spring’s begun.What infinite amusementThese creatures offer one! He asks me such conundrumsAs no one […]