THE clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowly northward to you, While north of them all, at the farthest ends, stands one bright-bosomed, aglance With fire as it guards the wild north cloud-coasts, red-fire seas running through The rocks where ravens flying to windward melt as a well-shot lance. You should be out by the […]

LAST night a thief came to me And struck at me with something dark. I cried, but no one could hear me, I lay dumb and stark. When I awoke this morning I could find no trace; Perhaps ’twas a dream of warning, For I’ve lost my peace.

Before the War WE have shut the doors behind us, and the velvet flowers of night Lean about us scattering their pollen grains of golden light. Now at last we lift our faces, and our faces come aflower To the night that takes us willing, liberates us to the hour. Now at last the ink […]

O STIFFLY shapen houses that change not, What conjuror’s cloth was thrown across you, and raised To show you thus transfigured, changed, Your stuff all gone, your menace almost rased? Such resolute shapes, so harshly set In hollow blocks and cubes deformed, and heaped In void and null profusion, how is this? In what strong […]

How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspur cleaving All with a flash of blue!–when will she be leaving Her room, where the night still hangs like a half- folded bat, And passion unbearable seethes in the darkness, like must in a vat.

I, THE man with the red scarf, Will give thee what I have, this last week’s earnings. Take them, and buy thee a silver ring And wed me, to ease my yearnings. For the rest, when thou art wedded I’ll wet my brow for thee With sweat, I’ll enter a house for thy sake, Thou […]

THE cuckoo and the coo-dove’s ceaseless calling, calling, Of a meaningless monotony is palling All my morning’s pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered wood. May-blossom and blue bird’s-eye flowers falling, falling In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling Messages of true-love down the dust of the high-road. I do not like to hear the gentle […]

You, if you were sensible, When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful, You would not turn and answer me “The night is wonderful.” Even you, if you knew How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to distinguish What hurts, from […]

THE houses fade in a melt of mist Blotching the thick, soiled air With reddish places that still resist The Night’s slow care. The hopeless, wintry twilight fades, The city corrodes out of sight As the body corrodes when death invades That citadel of delight. Now verdigris smoulderings softly spread Through the shroud of the […]

MANY roses in the wind Are tapping at the window-sash. A hawk is in the sky; his wings Slowly begin to plash. The roses with the west wind rapping Are torn away, and a splash Of red goes down the billowing air. Still hangs the hawk, with the whole sky moving Past him–only a wing-beat […]

WHEN into the night the yellow light is roused like dust above the towns, Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool in the midst of the downs, Our faces flower for a little hour pale and uncertain along the street, Daisies that waken all mistaken white-spread in expectancy to meet […]

SAD as he sits on the white sea-stone And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon, And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and the boulders. He sits like a shade by the flood alone While I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the croon Of my mockery mocks at him […]

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery […]

IN the choir the boys are singing the hymn. The morning light on their lips Moves in silver-moist flashes, in musical trim. Sudden outside the high window, one crow Hangs in the air And lights on a withered oak-tree’s top of woe. One bird, one blot, folded and still at the top Of the withered […]

BEFORE THE WAR BY the river In the black wet night as the furtive rain slinks down, Dropping and starting from sleep Alone on a seat A woman crouches. I must go back to her. I want to give her Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of her gown Asleep. My fingers […]

RIGID sleeps the house in darkness, I alone Like a thing unwarrantable cross the hall And climb the stairs to find the group of doors Standing angel-stern and tall. I want my own room’s shelter. But what is this Throng of startled beings suddenly thrown In confusion against my entry? Is it only the trees’ […]

DARKNESS comes out of the earth And swallows dip into the pallor of the west; From the hay comes the clamour of children’s mirth; Wanes the old palimpsest. The night-stock oozes scent, And a moon-blue moth goes flittering by: All that the worldly day has meant Wastes like a lie. The children have forsaken their […]

How have I wandered here to this vaulted room In the house of life?–the floor was ruffled with gold Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom, Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight unfold For the flush of the night; whereas now the gloom Of every dirty, must-besprinkled mould, And damp old […]

THE frost has settled down upon the trees And ruthlessly strangled off the fantasies Of leaves that have gone unnoticed, swept like old Romantic stories now no more to be told. The trees down the boulevard stand naked in thought, Their abundant summery wordage silenced, caught In the grim undertow; naked the trees confront Implacable […]

BEFORE THE WAR THE night rain, dripping unseen, Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands. The river, slipping between Lamps, is rayed with golden bands Half way down its heaving sides; Revealed where it hides. Under the bridge Great electric cars Sing through, and each with a floor-light racing along at its side. Far […]