How shall I build my temple to the Lord,

Swings, roundabouts, and shows, the Champions Seven,Dramas of battles and the deaths of kings,The whole Place d’Armes grown white as if with snow,With canvas booths arrayed in triple lines,And jugglers, lions, snakes from Mexico,Dancers on tight ropes, clowns and columbines.I went among them all with grave intent,I, too, to find it may be some delight.I…

Stood San Lorenzo with its front of flame,Where mourners wait the accustomed funerals.Here to a cypress having tied his steed,He lighted down sore weary on the grass,Seeking such comfort for his body’s needAs rest could lend till the day’s heat should passAnd no man stopped him, either friend or foeOr knight or citizen or friar…

You stand at my life’s threshold in the partOf king’s chief jester in the ante–room,And none more near the throne. You made us sportAccording to your folly, and passed on,And now you live with pension in Love’s Court,And privilege to jest and wear the crown.Yes, I could weep for you. Your part it wasTo strike…

What is more mirthful than for those, who sitFar from the great world’s vain imaginings,To mingle in its war of words and wit,A listener here, when Greek meets Greek, Fox Pitt,At question–time in the Queen’s Parliament?‘Tis the arena of old Rome. Here meetMore than mere Dacians on mere slaughter bent.Yonder and close to Mr. Speaker’s…

For see how little my poor prayers had mightTo save me, at the trial’s pinch, from wrong.What have I lost? The truth of my proud eyesScorning deceit. Behold me here to–dayLeading a double life, at shifts with lies,And trembling lest each shadow should betray.No longer with my lost ones may I mourn,Who came to me…

Strained at the world’s conventions as a tetherToo weak to bind us, and burst forth in song.The backs of fools we scourged as with a thong,And falsehood stripped to its last borrowed feather,And vowed to fact what things to fact belong,And of the rest asked neither why nor whether.Gravely we triumphed in that Gorgon time,Unsexed…