Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.
Horace there by Homer stands,
Plato stands below,
And here is Tully’s open page.
How many years ago
Were you and I unlettered lads
Mad as the mist and snow?
You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
What makes me shudder so?
I shudder and I sigh to think
That even Cicero
And many-minded Homer were
Mad as the mist and snow.
With cushions here and cushions there,To see the world once more.‘To stable and to kennel go;Bring what is there to bring;Lead my Lollard to and fro,Or gently in a ring.‘Put the chair upon the grass:Bring Rody and his hounds,That I may contented passFrom these earthly bounds.’His eyelids droop, his head falls low,His old eyes cloud…
Night resonance recedes, night walkers’ songAfter great cathedral gong;A starlit or a moonlit dome disdainsAll that man is,All mere complexities,The fury and the mire of human veins.Before me floats an image, man or shade,Shade more than man, more image than a shade;For Hades’ bobbin bound in mummy-clothMay unwind the winding path;A mouth that has no…
WITH the old kindness, the old distinguished grace,She lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hairpropped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face.She would not have us sad because she is lying there,And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit,Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her,Matching…
That come into my soul and escapeConfusion of the bed,Or those begotten or unbegottenPerning in a band,I bend my body to the spadeOr grope with a dirty hand.Or those begotten or unbegotten,For I would not recallSome that being unbegottenAre not individual,But copy some one action,Moulding it of dust or sand,I bend my body to the…
The children learn to cipher and to sing,To study reading-books and histories,To cut and sew, be neat in everythingIn the best modern way — the children’s eyesIn momentary wonder stare uponA sixty-year-old smiling public man.I dream of a Ledaean body, bentAbove a sinking fire. a tale that sheTold of a harsh reproof, or trivial eventThat…
I thought, ‘He holds her dear,’And shook with hate and fear.But O! ’twas bitter wrongIf he could pass her byWith an indifferent eye.Whereon I wrote and wrought,And now, being grey,I dream that I have broughtTo such a pitch my thoughtThat coming time can say,‘He shadowed in a glassWhat thing her body was.’For she had fiery…
