I asked of heaven and earth and sea, Saying: “O wondrous trinity, Deign to make answer unto me, And tell me truly what ye be.” And they made answer: “Verily, The mask before His face are we, Because ’tis writ no man can see His face and live;”–so spake the three. Then I: “O wondrous […]

I As drones a bee with sultry hum When all the world with heat lies dumb, Thou dronest through the drowsed lea, To lose thyself and find the sea. As fares the soul that threads the gloom Toward an unseen goal of doom, Thou farest forth all witlessly, To lose thyself and find the sea. […]

Westward a league the city lay, with one Cloud’s imminent umbrage o’er it: when behold, The incendiary sun Dropped from the womb o’ the vapour, rolled ‘Mongst huddled towers and temples, ‘twixt them set Infinite ardour of candescent gold, Encompassed minaret And terrace and marmoreal spire With conflagration: roofs enfurnaced, yet Unmolten,–columns and cupolas flanked […]

I Wave and wind and willow-tree Speak a speech that no man knoweth; Tree that sigheth, wind that bloweth, Wave that floweth to the sea: Wave and wind and willow-tree. Peerless perfect poets ye, Singing songs all songs excelling, Fine as crystal music dwelling In a welling fountain free: Peerless perfect poets three! II Wave […]

I know not if they erred Who thought to see The tale of all the times to be, Star-character’d; I know not, neither care, If fools or knaves they were. But this I know: last night On me there shone Two stars that made all stars look wan And shamed quite, Wherefrom the soul of […]

I made a little song about the rose And sang it for the rose to hear, Nor ever marked until the music’s close A lily that was listening near. The red red rose flushed redder with delight, And like a queen her head she raised. The white white lily blanched a paler white, For anger […]

Lo, thou and I, my love, And the sad stars above,– Thou and I, I and thou! Ah could we lie as now Ever and aye, my love, Hand within hand, my love, Heart within heart, my dove, Through night and day For ever! Lo, thou and I, my love, Up in the sky above, […]

I Love cometh and love goeth, And he is wise who knoweth Whither and whence love flies: But wise and yet more wise Are they that heed not whence he flies or whither Who hither speeds to-day, to-morrow thither; Like to the wind that as it listeth blows, And man doth hear the sound thereof, […]

As one whose eyes have watched the stricken day Swoon to its crimson death adown the sea, Turning his face to eastward suddenly Sees a lack-lustre world all chill and gray,– Then, wandering sunless whitherso he may, Feels the first dubious dumb obscurity, And vague foregloomings of the Dark to be, Close like a sadness […]

O Master, if immortals suffer aught Of sadness like to ours, and in like sighs And with like overflow of darkened eyes Disburden them, I know not; but methought, What time to day mine ear the utterance caught Whereby in manifold melodious wise Thy heart’s unrestful infelicities Rose like a sea with easeless winds distraught, […]

Drifting through vacant spaces vast of sleep, One overtook me like a flying star And whirled me onward in his glistering car. From shade to shade the winged steeds did leap, And clomb the midnight like a mountain-steep; Till that vague world where men and women are, Ev’n as a rushlight down the gulfs afar, […]

God-seeking thou hast journeyed far and nigh. On dawn-lit mountain-tops thy soul did yearn To hear His trailing garments wander by; And where ‘mid thunderous glooms great sunsets burn, Vainly thou sought’st His shadow on sea and sky; Or gazing up, at noontide, could’st discern Only a neutral heaven’s indifferent eye And countenance austerely taciturn. […]

Lightly we met in the morn, Lightly we parted at eve. There was never a thought of the thorn The rose of a day might leave. Fate’s finger we did not perceive, So lightly we met in the morn! So lightly we parted at eve We knew not that Love was born. I rose on […]

Here, peradventure, in this mirror glassed, Who gazes long and well at times beholds Some sunken feature of the mummied Past, But oftener only the embroidered folds And soiled magnificence of her rent robe Whose tattered skirts are ruined dynasties That sweep the dust of aeons in our eyes And with their trailing pride cumber […]

Thou burden of all songs the earth hath sung, Thou retrospect in Time’s reverted eyes, Thou metaphor of everything that dies, That dies ill-starred, or dies beloved and young And therefore blest and wise,– O be less beautiful, or be less brief, Thou tragic splendour, strange, and full of fear! In vain her pageant shall […]