A boat amid the ripples, drifting, rocking,Two idle people, without pause or aim;While in the ominous west there gathers darknessFlushed with flame. A haycock in a hayfield backing, lapping,Two drowsy people pillowed round about;While in the ominous west across the darknessFlame leaps out. Better a wrecked life than a life so aimless,Better a wrecked life […]

The buttercup is like a golden cup,The marigold is like a golden frill,The daisy with a golden eye looks up,And golden spreads the flag beside the rill,And gay and golden nods the daffodil,The gorsey common swells a golden sea,The cowslip hangs a head of golden tips,And golden drips the honey which the beeSucks from sweet […]

Lovely Spring,A brief sweet thing,Is swift on the wing;Gracious Summer,A slow sweet comer,Hastens past;Autumn while sweetIs all incompleteWith a moaning blast,–Nothing can last,Can be cleaved unto,Can be dwelt upon;It is hurried through,It is come and gone,Undone it cannot be done,It is ever to do,Ever old, ever new,Ever waxing oldAnd lapsing to Winter cold.

Long have I longed, till I am tiredOf longing and desire;Farewell my points in vain desired,My dying fire;Farewell all things that die and fail and tire. Springtide and youth and useless pleasureAnd all my useless scheming,My hopes of unattainable treasure,Dreams not worth dreaming,Glow-worms that gleam but yield no warmth in gleaming, Farewell all shows that […]

Beautiful, tender, wasting away for sorrow;Thus to-day; and how shall it be with thee to-morrow?Beautiful, tender–what else?A hope tells. Beautiful, tender, keeping the jubileeIn the land of home together, past death and sea;No more change or death, no moreSalt sea-shore.

Maiden May sat in her bower,In her blush rose bower in flower,Sweet of scent;Sat and dreamed away an hour,Half content, half uncontent. “Why should rose blossoms be born,Tender blossoms, on a thornThough so sweet?Never a thorn besets the cornScentless in its strength complete. “Why are roses all so frail,At the mercy of the gale,Of a […]

There’s no replyingTo the Wind’s sighing,Telling, foretelling,Dying, undying,Dwindling and swelling,Complaining, droning,Whistling and moaning,Ever beginning,Ending, repeating,Hinting and dinning,Lagging and fleeting–We’ve no replyingLiving or dyingTo the Wind’s sighing. What are you telling,Variable Wind-tone?What would be teaching,O sinking, swelling,Desolate Wind-moan?Ever for everTeaching and preaching,Never, ah neverMaking us wiser–The earliest riserCatches no meaning,The last who hearkensGarners no gleaningOf wisdom’s […]

Never on this side of the grave again,On this side of the river,On this side of the garner of the grain,Never,– Ever while time flows on and on and on,That narrow noiseless river,Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan,Ever,– Never despairing, often fainting, ruing,But looking back, ah never!Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuingEver.

Oh fair Milly Brandon, a young maid, a fair maid!All her curls are yellow and her eyes are blue,And her cheeks were rosy red till a secret care madeHollow whiteness of their brightness as a care will do. Still she tends her flowers, but not as in the old days,Still she sings her songs, but […]

The Spring spreads one green lap of flowersWhich Autumn buries at the fall,No chilling showers of Autumn hoursCan stay them or recall;Winds sing a dirge, while earth lays out of sightHer garment of delight. The cloven East brings forth the sun,The cloven West doth bury himWhat time his gorgeous race is runAnd all the world […]

Because you never yet have loved me, dear,Think you you never can nor ever will?Surely while life remains hope lingers still,Hope the last blossom of life’s dying year.Because the season and mine age grow sere,Shall never Spring bring forth her daffodil,Shall never sweeter Summer feast her fillOf roses with the nightingales they hear?If you had […]

“Oh tell me once and tell me twiceAnd tell me thrice to make it plain,When we who part this weary day,When we who part shall meet again.” “When windflowers blossom on the seaAnd fishes skim along the plain,Then we who part this weary day,Then you and I shall meet again.” “Yet tell me once before […]

Poor the pleasureDoled out by measure,Sweet though it be, while briefAs falling of the leaf;Poor is pleasureBy weight and measure. Sweet the sorrowWhich ends to-morrow;Sharp though it be and sore,It ends for evermore:Zest of sorrow,What ends to-morrow.

Not for me marring or making,Not for me giving or taking;I love my Love and he loves not me,I love my Love and my heart is breaking. Sweet is Spring in its lovely showing,Sweet the violet veiled in blowing,Sweet it is to love and be loved;Ah, sweet knowledge beyond my knowing! Who sighs for love […]

Why has Spring one syllable lessThan any its fellow season?There may be some other reason,And I’m merely making a guess;But surely it hoards such wealthOf happiness, hope and health,Sunshine and musical sound,It may spare a foot from its nameYet all the sameSuperabound. Soft-named Summer,Most welcome comer,Brings almost everythingOver which we dream or singOr sigh;But then […]

The soonest mended, nothing said;And help may rise from east or west;But my two hands are lumps of lead,My heart sits leaden in my breast. O north wind swoop not from the north,O south wind linger in the south,Oh come not raving raging forth,To bring my heart into my mouth; For I’ve a husband out […]

The splendor of the kindling day,The splendor of the setting sun,These move my soul to wend its way,And have doneWith all we grasp and toil amongst and say. The paling roses of a cloud,The fading bow that arches space,These woo my fancy toward my shroud;Toward the placeOf faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed. The […]

I sat beneath a willow tree,Where water falls and calls;While fancies upon fancies solaced me,Some true, and some were false. Who set their heart upon a hopeThat never comes to pass,Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,The sun’s wan looking-glass. Who set their will upon a whimClung to through good and ill,Are wrecked alike whether […]

There is silence that saith, “Ah me!”There is silence that nothing saith;One the silence of life forlorn,One the silence of death;One is, and the other shall be. One we know and have known for long,One we know not, but we shall know,All we who have ever been born;Even so, be it so,–There is silence, despite […]

In my Autumn garden I was fainTo mourn among my scattered roses;Alas for that last rosebud which unclosesTo Autumn’s languid sun and rainWhen all the world is on the wane!Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,Nor heard the nightingale in tune. Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,You are but coarse compared with roses:More […]