Empty are the ways,

Do thou, Pluto, bring here no greater harshness.So many thousand beauties are gone down to Avernus,Ye might let one remain above with us.With you is lope, with you the white-gleaming Tyro,With you is Europa and the shameless Pasiphae,And all the fair from Troy and all from Achaia,From the sundered realms, of Thebes and of aged…

Talk me no love talk, no bought-cheap fiddl’ry,Mine is the ship and thine the merchandise,All the blind earth knows not th’empriseWhereto thou calledst and whereto I call.Lo, I have seen thee bound about with dreams,Lo, I have known thy heart and its desire;Life, all of it, my sea, and all men’s streamsAre fused in it…

I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,I have seen them with untidy families,I have seen their smiles full of teethand heard ungainly laughter.And I am happier than you are,And they were happier than I am;And the fish swim in the lakeand do not even own clothing.

How many words talked out with abundant candles;Struggles when the lights were taken away;Now with bared breasts she wrestled against me,Tunic spread in delay;And she then opening my eyelids fallen in sleep,Her lips upon them; and it was her mouth saying:Sluggard!In how many varied embraces, our changing arms,Her kisses, how many, lingering on my lips.‘Turn…

We who went out into the four A. M. of the worldComposing our albas,We who shook off our dew with the rabbits,We who have seen even Artemis a-binding her sandals,Have we ever heard the like?O mountains of Hellas!!Gather about me, O Muses!When we sat upon the granite brink in HeliconClothed in the tattered sunlight,Muses with…

Many and many.I am hung here, a scare-crow for lovers.2Escape! There is, O Idiot, no escape,Flee if you like into Ranaus,desire will follow you thither,Though you heave into the air upon the gilded Pegasean back,Though you had the feathery sandals of PerseusTo lift you up through split air,The high tracks of Hermes would not afford…