Death, thou’rt a cordial old and rare:Look how compounded, with what care!Time got his wrinkles reaping theeSweet herbs from all antiquity. David to thy distillage went,Keats, and Gotama excellent,Omar Khayyam, and Chaucer bright,And Shakespeare for a king-delight. Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt:Hand me the cup whene’er thou wilt;‘Tis thy rich stirrup-cup to […]

Look where a three-point star shall weave his beamInto the slumb’rous tissue of some stream,Till his bright self o’er his bright copy seemFulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;So in this night of art thy soul doth showHer excellent double in the steadfast flowOf wishing love that through men’s hearts doth go:At once thou shin’st above […]

As Love will carve dear names upon a tree,Symbol of gravure on his heart to be, So thought I thine with loving text to setIn the growth and substance of my canzonet; But, writing it, my tears begin to fall —This wild-rose stem for thy large name’s too small! Nay, still my trembling hands are […]

To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height,O’erseeing all that man but undersees;To loiter down lone alleys of delight,And hear the beating of the hearts of trees,And think the thoughts that lilies speak in whiteBy greenwood pools and pleasant passages; With healthy dreams a-dream in flesh and soul,To pace, in mighty meditations drawn,From out the forest […]

It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ranDown the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way. Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;In the print of […]

At midnight, death’s and truth’s unlocking time,When far within the spirit’s hearing rollsThe great soft rumble of the course of things —A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, —When darkness clears our vision that by dayIs sun-blind, and the soul’s a ravening owlFor truth and flitteth here and there aboutLow-lying woody tracts of […]

The robin laughed in the orange-tree:“Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:While breasts are red and wings are boldAnd green trees wave us globes of gold,Time’s scythe shall reap but bliss for me— Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree. Burn, golden globes in leafy sky,My orange-planets: crimson IWill shine and shoot among the spheres(Blithe meteor that […]

What heartache — ne’er a hill!Inexorable, vapid, vague and chillThe drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.With one poor word they tell me all they know;Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,Do drawl it o’er again and o’er again.They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:Always the same, the same. Nature hath no surprise,No […]

Out of the hills of Habersham,Down the valleys of Hall,I hurry amain to reach the plain,Run the rapid and leap the fall,Split at the rock and together again,Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,And flee from folly on every sideWith a lover’s pain to attain the plainFar from the hills of Habersham,Far from the valleys […]

Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeledThy plough to ring this solitary treeWith clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,In cool green radius twice my length may be —Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,That here come oft together — daily I,Stretched prone in summer’s mortal ecstasy,Do stir […]

Dear uplands, Chester’s favorable fields,My large unjealous Loves, many yet one —A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all,Fair tilth and fruitful seasons!Lo, how still!The midmorn empties you of men, save me;Speak to your lover, meadows! None can hear.I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine,Holding the hills and heavens in my heartFor contemplation.‘Tis a perfect hour.From […]