Of me and of my theme think what thou wilt:The song of gladness one straight bolt can check.But I have never stood at Fortune’s beck:Were she and her light crew to run atiltAt my poor holding little would be spilt;Small were the praise for singing o’er that wreck.Who courts her dooms to strife his bended […]

What say you, critic, now you have becomeAn author and maternal?–in this trap(To quote you) of poor hollow folk who rapOn instruments as like as drum to drum.You snarled tut-tut for welcome to tum-tum,So like the nose fly-teased in its noon’s nap.You scratched an insect-slaughtering thunder-clapWith that between the fingers and the thumb.It seemeth mad […]

I With love exceeding a simple love of the thingsThat glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck;Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wingsFrom branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck;Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball;Or cast their web between bramble and thorny hook;The good […]

I When by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked,Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God,Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked,Who: and what a track showed the upturned sod!Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severeBent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide,How the rustic flute drew the silver to the sphere,Sister of […]

He rises and begins to round,He drops the silver chain of sound,Of many links without a break,In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,All intervolved and spreading wide,Like water-dimples down a tideWhere ripple ripple overcurlsAnd eddy into eddy whirls;A press of hurried notes that runSo fleet they scarce are more than one,Yet changeingly the trills repeatAnd linger […]

I He who has looked upon EarthDeeper than flower and fruit,Losing some hue of his mirth,As the tree striking rock at the root,Unto him shall the marvellous taleOf Callistes more humanly comeWith the touch on his breast than a hailFrom the markets that hum. II Now the youth footed swift to the dawn.‘Twas the season […]

I Last night returning from my twilight walkI met the grey mist Death, whose eyeless browWas bent on me, and from his hand of chalkHe reached me flowers as from a withered bough:O Death, what bitter nosegays givest thou! II Death said, I gather, and pursued his way.Another stood by me, a shape in stone,Sword-hacked […]

I Enter these enchanted woods,You who dare.Nothing harms beneath the leavesMore than waves a swimmer cleaves.Toss your heart up with the lark,Foot at peace with mouse and worm,Fair you fare.Only at a dread of darkQuaver, and they quit their form:Thousand eyeballs under hoodsHave you by the hair.Enter these enchanted woods,You who dare. II Here the […]

I See the sweet women, friend, that lean beneathThe ever-falling fountain of green leavesRound the white bending stem, and like a wreathOf our most blushful flower shine trembling through,To teach philosophers the thirst of thieves:Is one for me? is one for you? II – Fair sirs, we give you welcome, yield you place,And you shall […]

I On her great venture, Man,Earth gazes while her fingers dint the breastWhich is his well of strength, his home of rest,And fair to scan. II More aid than that embrace,That nourishment, she cannot give: his heartInvolves his fate; and she who urged the startAbides the race. III For he is in the listsContentious with […]

I chanced upon an early walk to spyA troop of children through an orchard gate:The boughs hung low, the grass was high;They had but to lift hands or waitFor fruits to fill them; fruits were all their sky. They shouted, running on from tree to tree,And played the game the wind plays, on and round.‘Twas […]

Carols nature, counsel men.Different notes as rook from wrenHear we when our steps begin,And the choice is cast within,Where a robber raven’s taleUrges passion’s nightingale. Hark to the three. Chimed they in one,Life were music of the sun.Liquid first, and then the caw,Then the cry that knows not law. I As the birds do, so […]

Under yonder beech-tree single on the greensward,Couched with her arms behind her golden head,Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow,Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me:Then […]

I Sword in length a reaping-hook amainHarald sheared his field, blood up to shank:‘Mid the swathes of slain,First at moonrise drank. II Thereof hunger, as for meats the knife,Pricked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reachHome and his young wife,Nigh the sea-ford beach. III After battle keen to feed was he:Smoking flesh the thresher […]

1–I When the South sang like a nightingaleAbove a bower in May,The training of Love’s vine of flameWas writ in laws, for lord and dameTo say their yea and nay. II When the South sang like a nightingaleAcross the flowering night,And lord and dame held gentle sport,There came a young princess to Court,A frost of […]

I Ladies who in chains of wedlockChafe at an unequal yoke,Not to nightingales give hearing;Better this, the raven’s croak. II Down the Prado strolled my seigneur,Arm at lordly bow on hip,Fingers trimming his moustachios,Eyes for pirate fellowship. III Home sat she that owned him master;Like the flower bent to groundRain-surcharged and sun-forsaken;Heedless of her hair […]

I Queen Theodolind has builtIn the earth a furnace-bed:There the Traitor Nail that spiltBlood of the anointed Head,Red of heat, resolves in shame:White of heat, awakes to flame.Beat, beat! white of heat,Red of heat, beat, beat! II Mark the skeleton of fireLightening from its thunder-roof:So comes this that saw expireHim we love, for our behoof!Red […]

1–I In middle age an evil thingBefell Archduchess Anne:She looked outside her wedding-ringUpon a princely man. II Count Louis was for horse and arms;And if its beacon waved,For love; but ladies had not charmsTo match a danger braved. III On battlefields he was the bowBestrung to fly the shaft:In idle hours his heart would flowAs […]

Melpomene among her livid people,Ere stroke of lyre, upon Thaleia looks,Warned by old contests that one museful rippleAlong those lips of rose with tendril hooksForebodes disturbance in the springs of pathos,Perchance may change of masks midway demand,Albeit the man rise mountainous as Athos,The woman wild as Cape Leucadia stand. II For this the Comic Muse […]

I Flat as to an eagle’s eye,Earth hung under Attila.Sign for carnage gave he none.In the peace of his disdain,Sun and rain, and rain and sun,Cherished men to wax again,Crawl, and in their manner die.On his people stood a frost.Like the charger cut in stone,Rearing stiff, the warrior host,Which had life from him alone,Craved the […]