Sprung of the father blood, the mother brain, Are they who point our pathway and sustain. They rarely meet; one soars, one walks retired. When they do meet, it is our earth inspired. To see Life’s formless offspring and subdue Desire of times unripe, we have these two, Whose union is right reason: join they […]

To sit on History in an easy chair, Still rivalling the wild hordes by whom ’twas writ! Sure, this beseems a race of laggard wit, Unwarned by those plain letters scrawled on air. If more than hands’ and armsful be our share, Snatch we for substance we see vapours flit. Have we not heard derision […]

We have seen mighty men ballooning high, And in another moment bump the ground. He falls; and in his measurement is found To count some inches o’er the common fry. ‘Twas not enough to send him climbing sky, Yet ’twas enough above his fellows crowned, Had he less panted. Let his faithful hound Bark at […]

He leads: we hear our Seaman’s call In the roll of battles won; For he is Britain’s Admiral Till setting of her sun. When Britain’s life was in her ships, He kept the sea as his own right; And saved us from more fell eclipse Than drops on day from blackest night. Again his battle […]

I Not yet had History’s Aetna smoked the skies, And low the Gallic Giantess lay enchained, While overhead in ordered set and rise Her kingly crowns immutably defiled; Effulgent on funereal piled Across the vacant heavens, and distrained Her body, mutely, even as earth, to bear; Despoiled the tomb of hope, her mouth of air. […]

I Cannon his name, Cannon his voice, he came. Who heard of him heard shaken hills, An earth at quake, to quiet stamped; Who looked on him beheld the will of wills, The driver of wild flocks where lions ramped: Beheld War’s liveries flee him, like lumped grass Nid-nod to ground beneath the cuffing storm; […]

I The sister Hours in circles linked, Daughters of men, of men the mates, Are gone on flow with the day that winked, With the night that spanned at golden gates. Mothers, they leave us, quickening seed; They bear us grain or flower or weed, As we have sown; is nought extinct For them we […]

I We look for her that sunlike stood Upon the forehead of our day, An orb of nations, radiating food For body and for mind alway. Where is the Shape of glad array; The nervous hands, the front of steel, The clarion tongue? Where is the bold proud face? We see a vacant place; We […]

How big of breast our Mother Gaea laughed At sight of her boy Giants on the leap Each over other as they neighboured home, Fronting the day’s descent across green slopes, And up fired mountain crags their shadows danced. Close with them in their fun, she scarce could guess, Though these two billowy urchins reeked […]

To Thee, dear God of Mercy, both appeal, Who straightway sound the call to arms. Thou know’st; And that black spot in each embattled host, Spring of the blood-stream, later wilt reveal. Now is it red artillery and white steel; Till on a day will ring the victor’s boast, That ’tis Thy chosen towers uppermost, […]

Awakes for me and leaps from shroud All radiantly the moon’s own night Of folded showers in streamer cloud; Our shadows down the highway white Or deep in woodland woven-boughed, With yon and yon a stem alight. I see marauder runagates Across us shoot their dusky wink; I hear the parliament of chats In haws […]

I Or shall we run with Artemis Or yield the breast to Aphrodite? Both are mighty; Both give bliss; Each can torture if divided; Each claims worship undivided, In her wake would have us wallow. II Youth must offer on bent knees Homage unto one or other; Earth, the mother, This decrees; And unto the […]

With sagest craft Arachne worked Her web, and at a corner lurked, Awaiting what should plump her soon, To case it in the death-cocoon. Sagaciously her home she chose For visits that would never close; Inside my chalet-porch her feast Plucked all the winds but chill North-east. The finished structure, bar on bar, Had snatched […]

Who murmurs, hither, hither: who Where nought is audible so fills the ear? Where nought is visible can make appear A veil with eyes that waver through, Like twilight’s pledge of blessed night to come, Or day most golden? All unseen and dumb, She breathes, she moves, inviting flees, Is lost, and leaves the thrilled […]

Through the water-eye of night, Midway between eve and dawn, See the chase, the rout, the flight In deep forest; oread, faun, Goat-foot, antlers laid on neck; Ravenous all the line for speed. See yon wavy sparkle beck Sign of the Virgin Lady’s lead. Down her course a serpent star Coils and shatters at her […]

Unto that love must we through fire attain, Which those two held as breath of common air; The hands of whom were given in bond elsewhere; Whom Honour was untroubled to restrain. Midway the road of our life’s term they met, And one another knew without surprise; Nor cared that beauty stood in mutual eyes; […]

Like a flood river whirled at rocky banks, An army issues out of wilderness, With battle plucking round its ragged flanks; Obstruction in the van; insane excess Oft at the heart; yet hard the onward stress Unto more spacious, where move ordered ranks, And rise hushed temples built of shapely stone, The work of hands […]

If that thou hast the gift of strength, then know Thy part is to uplift the trodden low; Else in a giant’s grasp until the end A hopeless wrestler shall thy soul contend.

They have no song, the sedges dry, And still they sing. It is within my breast they sing, As I pass by. Within my breast they touch a string, They wake a sigh. There is but sound of sedges dry; In me they sing.

Sunset worn to its last vermilion he; She that star overhead in slow descent: That white star with the front of angel she; He undone in his rays of glory spent Halo, fair as the bow-shot at his rise, He casts round her, and knows his hour of rest Incomplete, were the light for which […]