When night was lifting, And dawn had crept under its shade, Amid cold clouds drifting Dead-white as a corpse outlaid, With a sudden scare I seemed to behold My Love in bare Hard lines unfold. Yea, in a moment, An insight that would not die Killed her old endowment Of charm that had capped all […]

I met her, as we had privily planned, Where passing feet beat busily: She whispered: “Father is at hand! He wished to walk with me.” His presence as he joined us there Banished our words of warmth away; We felt, with cloudings of despair, What Love must lose that day. Her crimson lips remained unkissed, […]

I say, “I’ll seek her side Ere hindrance interposes;” But eve in midnight closes, And here I still abide. When darkness wears I see Her sad eyes in a vision; They ask, “What indecision Detains you, Love, from me? – “The creaking hinge is oiled, I have unbarred the backway, But you tread not the […]

These people have not heard your name; No loungers in this placid place Have helped to bruit your beauty’s fame. The grey Cathedral, towards whose face Bend eyes untold, has met not yours; Your shade has never swept its base, Your form has never darked its doors, Nor have your faultless feet once thrown A […]

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through She left me, and moment by moment got Smaller and smaller, until to my view She was but a spot; A wee white spot of muslin fluff That down the diminishing platform bore Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough To the carriage door. Under the lamplight’s […]

Rain on the windows, creaking doors, With blasts that besom the green, And I am here, and you are there, And a hundred miles between! O were it but the weather, Dear, O were it but the miles That summed up all our severance, There might be room for smiles. But that thwart thing betwixt […]

I lingered through the night to break of day, Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me, Intently busied with a vast array Of epithets that should outfigure thee. Full-featured terms–all fitless–hastened by, And this sole speech remained: “That maiden mine!” – Debarred from due description then did I Perceive the indefinite phrase could […]

In five-score summers! All new eyes, New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise; New woes to weep, new joys to prize; With nothing left of me and you In that live century’s vivid view Beyond a pinch of dust or two; A century which, if not sublime, Will show, I doubt not, at its […]

The cold moon hangs to the sky by its horn, And centres its gaze on me; The stars, like eyes in reverie, Their westering as for a while forborne, Quiz downward curiously. Old Robert draws the backbrand in, The green logs steam and spit; The half-awakened sparrows flit From the riddled thatch; and owls begin […]

I drew the letter out, while gleamed The sloping sun from under a roof Of cloud whose verge rose visibly. The burning ball flung rays that seemed Stretched like a warp without a woof Across the levels of the lea To where I stood, and where they beamed As brightly on the page of proof […]

Here is your parents’ dwelling with its curtained windows telling Of no thought of us within it or of our arrival here; Their slumbers have been normal after one day more of formal Matrimonial commonplace and household life’s mechanic gear. I would be candid willingly, but dawn draws on so chillingly As to render further […]

Yes; we’ll wed, my little fay, And you shall write you mine, And in a villa chastely gray We’ll house, and sleep, and dine. But those night-screened, divine, Stolen trysts of heretofore, We of choice ecstasies and fine Shall know no more. The formal faced cohue Will then no more upbraid With smiting smiles and […]

I told her when I left one day That whatsoever weight of care Might strain our love, Time’s mere assault Would work no changes there. And in the night she came to me, Toothless, and wan, and old, With leaden concaves round her eyes, And wrinkles manifold. I tremblingly exclaimed to her, “O wherefore do […]

Little head against my shoulder, Shy at first, then somewhat bolder, And up-eyed; Till she, with a timid quaver, Yielded to the kiss I gave her; But, she sighed. That there mingled with her feeling Some sad thought she was concealing It implied. – Not that she had ceased to love me, None on earth […]

Indulge no more may we In this sweet-bitter pastime: The love-light shines the last time Between you, Dear, and me. There shall remain no trace Of what so closely tied us, And blank as ere love eyed us Will be our meeting-place. The flowers and thymy air, Will they now miss our coming? The dumbles […]

That was once her casement, And the taper nigh, Shining from within there, Beckoned, “Here am I!” Now, as then, I see her Moving at the pane; Ah; ’tis but her phantom Borne within my brain! – Foremost in my vision Everywhere goes she; Change dissolves the landscapes, She abides with me. Shape so sweet […]

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned To the shadowy corner that none could see, You paused for our parting,–plaintively; Though overnight had come words that burned My fond frail happiness out of me. And then I kissed you,–despite my thought That our spell must end when reflection came On what you had deemed […]

At last I put off love, For twice ten years The daysman of my thought, And hope, and doing; Being ashamed thereof, And faint of fears And desolations, wrought In his pursuing, Since first in youthtime those Disquietings That heart-enslavement brings To hale and hoary, Became my housefellows, And, fool and blind, I turned from […]

The grey gaunt days dividing us in twain Seemed hopeless hills my strength must faint to climb, But they are gone; and now I would detain The few clock-beats that part us; rein back Time, And live in close expectance never closed In change for far expectance closed at last, So harshly has expectance been […]

I read your name when you were strange to me, Where it stood blazoned bold with many more; I passed it vacantly, and did not see Any great glory in the shape it wore. O cruelty, the insight barred me then! Why did I not possess me with its sound, And in its cadence catch […]