The Gods are dead: no longer do we bringTo grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,For Pan is dead, and all the wantoningBy secret glade and devious haunt is o’er:Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is […]

Two crowned Kings, and One that stood aloneWith no green weight of laurels round his head,But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moanFor sins no bleating victim can atone,And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.Girt was he in a garment black and red,And at his feet I marked a […]

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the skyBurned like a heated opal through the air;We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fairFor the blue lands that to the eastward lie.From the steep prow I marked with quickening eyeZakynthos, every olive grove and creek,Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.The flapping of […]

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bedGaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,In the still chamber of yon pyramidSurely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead. Ah! […]

The oleander on the wallGrows crimson in the dawning light,Though the grey shadows of the nightLie yet on Florence like a pall. The dew is bright upon the hill,And bright the blossoms overhead,But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,The little Attic song is still. Only the leaves are gently stirredBy the soft breathing of the gale,And […]

(To my Friend Henry Irving) The silent room, the heavy creeping shade,The dead that travel fast, the opening door,The murdered brother rising through the floor,The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,And then the lonely duel in the glade,The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,–These things are […]

(To Sarah Bernhardt) How vain and dull this common world must seemTo such a One as thou, who should’st have talkedAt Florence with Mirandola, or walkedThrough the cool olives of the Academe:Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green streamFor Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have playedWith the white girls in that Phaeacian gladeWhere grave […]

(To Ellen Terry) I marvel not Bassanio was so boldTo peril all he had upon the lead,Or that proud Aragon bent low his headOr that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:For in that gorgeous dress of beaten goldWhich is more golden than the golden sunNo woman Veronese looked uponWas half so fair as thou whom I […]

(To Ellen Terry) In the lone tent, waiting for victory,She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalryTo her proud soul no common fear can bring:Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,Her soul a-flame […]

(To Ellen Terry) As one who poring on a Grecian urnScans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,And for their beauty’s sake is loth to turnAnd face the obvious day, must I not yearnFor many a secret moon of indolent bliss,When in midmost shrine of ArtemisI see […]

Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,From passionate pain to deadlier delight,–I am too young to live without desire,Too young art thou to waste this summer nightAsking those idle questions which of oldMan sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told. For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,And wisdom is […]

The sky is laced with fitful red,The circling mists and shadows flee,The dawn is rising from the sea,Like a white lady from her bed. And jagged brazen arrows fallAthwart the feathers of the night,And a long wave of yellow lightBreaks silently on tower and hall, And spreading wide across the woldWakes into flight some fluttering […]

How steep the stairs within Kings’ houses areFor exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,And O how salt and bitter is the breadWhich falls from this Hound’s table,–better farThat I had died in the red ways of war,Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,Than to live thus, by all things comradedWhich seek the essence […]

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,And at thy pleasure weave that web of painWhose brightest threads are each a wasted day? Is it thy will–Love that I love so well–That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spotWherein, like evil paramours, must dwellThe quenchless […]

Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priestWhen first he takes from out the hidden shrineHis God imprisoned in the Eucharist,And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine, Feels not such awful wonder as I feltWhen first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,And all night long before thy feet I kneltTill thou wert […]

As often-times the too resplendent sunHurries the pallid and reluctant moonBack to her sombre cave, ere she hath wonA single ballad from the nightingale,So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,And all my sweetest singing out of tune. And as at dawn across the level meadOn wings impetuous some wind will come,And with its […]

The wild bee reels from bough to boughWith his furry coat and his gauzy wing,Now in a lily-cup, and nowSetting a jacinth bell a-swing,In his wandering;Sit closer love: it was here I trowI made that vow, Swore that two lives should be like oneAs long as the sea-gull loved the sea,As long as the sunflower […]

Within this restless, hurried, modern worldWe took our hearts’ full pleasure–You and I,And now the white sails of our ship are furled,And spent the lading of our argosy. Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,For very weeping is my gladness fled,Sorrow has paled my young mouth’s vermilion,And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed. […]

To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wearThis paltry age’s gaudy livery,To let each base hand filch my treasury,To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom,–I swearI love it not! these things are less to meThan the thin foam that frets upon the sea,Less than the thistledown of summer […]

It is full winter now: the trees are bare,Save where the cattle huddle from the coldBeneath the pine, for it doth never wearThe autumn’s gaudy livery whose goldHer jealous brother pilfers, but is trueTo the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hayLie on […]