Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,And drag me at your chariot till I die,–Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts!–Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lieWho shout you mighty: thick about my hairDay in, day out, your ominous arrows purrWho still am free, unto no querulous careA fool, and […]

If he should lie a-dying I am not willing you should goInto the earth, where Helen went;She is awake by now, I know.Where Cleopatra’s anklets rustYou will not lie with my consent;And Sappho is a roving dust;Cressid could love again; Dido,Rotted in state, is restless still:You leave me much against my will.

Still must the poet as of old,In barren attic bleak and cold,Starve, freeze, and fashion verses toSuch things as flowers and song and you; Still as of old his being giveIn Beauty’s name, while she may live,Beauty that may not die as longAs there are flowers and you and song.

Oh, I am grown so free from careSince my heart broke!I set my throat against the air,I laugh at simple folk! There’s little kind and little fairIs worth its weight in smokeTo me, that’s grown so free from careSince my heart broke! Lass, if to sleep you would repairAs peaceful as you woke,Best not besiege […]

Cut if you will, with Sleep’s dull knife,Each day to half its length, my friend,–The years that Time takes off my life,He’ll take from off the other end!

The room is full of you!–As I came inAnd closed the door behind me, all at onceA something in the air, intangible,Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!– Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyedEach other room’s dear personality.The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,–The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death–Has strangled that habitual breath of homeWhose […]

All I could see from where I stoodWas three long mountains and a wood;I turned and looked another way,And saw three islands in a bay.So with my eyes I traced the lineOf the horizon, thin and fine,Straight around till I was comeBack to where I’d started from;And all I saw from where I stoodWas three […]

I shall forget you presently, my dear,So make the most of this, your little day,Your little month, your little half a year,Ere I forget, or die, or move away,And we are done forever; by and byI shall forget you, as I said, but now,If you entreat me with your loveliest lieI will protest you with […]

Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!Faithless am I save to love’s self alone.Were you not lovely I would leave you now;After the feet of beauty fly my own.Were you not still my hunger’s rarest food,And water ever to my wildest thirst,I would desert you–think not but I would!–And seek another as I […]

I think I should have loved you presently,And given in earnest words I flung in jest;And lifted honest eyes for you to see,And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;And all my pretty follies flung asideThat won you to me, and beneath your gaze,Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,Spread like a chart my […]

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!Thy mists, that roll and rise!Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sagAnd all but cry with colour! That gaunt cragTo crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!World, World, I cannot get thee close enough! Long have I known a […]

Let the little birds sing;Let the little lambs play;Spring is here; and so ’tis spring;–But not in the old way! I recall a placeWhere a plum-tree grew;There you lifted up your face,And blossoms covered you. If the little birds sing,And the little lambs play,Spring is here; and so ’tis spring–But not in the old way!

The first rose on my rose-treeBudded, bloomed, and shattered,During sad days when to meNothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean;Still it seems a pityNo one saw,–it must have beenVery pretty.

Am I kin to Sorrow,That so oftFalls the knocker of my door–Neither loud nor soft,But as long accustomed,Under Sorrow’s hand?Marigolds around the stepAnd rosemary stand,And then comes Sorrow–And what does Sorrow careFor the rosemaryOr the marigolds there?Am I kin to Sorrow?Are we kin?That so oft upon my door–*Oh, come in*!

I knew her for a little ghostThat in my garden walked;The wall is high–higher than most–And the green gate was locked. And yet I did not think of thatTill after she was gone–I knew her by the broad white hat,All ruffled, she had on. By the dear ruffles round her feet,By her small hands that […]

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;Eat I must, and sleep I will,–and would that night were here!But ah!–to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!Would that it were day again!–with twilight near! Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;This or that or […]

I’ll keep a little tavernBelow the high hill’s crest,Wherein all grey-eyed peopleMay set them down and rest. There shall be plates a-plenty,And mugs to melt the chillOf all the grey-eyed peopleWho happen up the hill. There sound will sleep the traveller,And dream his journey’s end,But I will rouse at midnightThe falling fire to tend. Aye, […]

I will be the gladdest thingUnder the sun!I will touch a hundred flowersAnd not pick one. I will look at cliffs and cloudsWith quiet eyes,Watch the wind bow down the grass,And the grass rise. And when lights begin to showUp from the town,I will mark which must be mine,And then start down!

God had called us, and we came;Our loved Earth to ashes left;Heaven was a neighbor’s house,Open to us, bereft. Gay the lights of Heaven showed,And ’twas God who walked ahead;Yet I wept along the road,Wanting my own house instead. Wept unseen, unheeded cried,“All you things my eyes have kissed,Fare you well! We meet no more,Lovely, […]

She is neither pink nor pale,And she never will be all mine;She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs;In the sun ’tis a woe to me!And her voice is a string of colored beads,Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that […]