White flake of childhood, clinging so
To my soiled raiment, thy shy snow
At tenderest touch will shrink and go.
Love me not, delightful child.
My heart, by many snares beguiled,
Has grown timorous and wild.
It would fear thee not at all,
Wert thou not so harmless-small.
Because thy arrows, not yet dire,
Are still unbarbed with destined fire,
I fear thee more than hadst thou stood
Full-panoplied in womanhood.
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She did not love to love; but hated him
From passion taught misprision to begin;And all this sinWas because love to cast out had no skillSelf, which was regent still.Her own self-will made void her own self’s will
I.
Spin, daughter Mary, spin,Twirl your wheel with silver din;Spin, daughter Mary, spin,Spin a tress for Viola.ANGELS.Spin, Queen Mary, aBrown tress for Viola!II.THE FATHER OF HEAVEN.Weave, hands angelical,Weave a woof of flesh to pall –Weave, hands angelical –Flesh to pall our Viola.ANGELS.Weave, singing brothers, aVelvet flesh for Viola!III.THE FATHER OF HEAVEN.Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes,Wood-browned…
Whenas my life shall time with funeral tread
Following, sole mourner, mine own manhood dead,Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;When I you love am no more I you love,But go with unsubservient feet, beholdYour dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove;–A new man, mock-ed with misname of old;When shamed Love keep his ruined lodging, elf!When, ceremented in mouldering…
I will not perturbate
With praiseOf thy dead days;To the new-heavened say, –‘Spirit, thou wert fine clay:’This do,Thy praise who knew.Therefore my spirit clingsHeaven’s porter by the wings,And holdsIts gated goldsApart, with thee to pressA private business; –Whence,Deign me audience.Anchorite, who didst dwellWith all the world for cellMy soulRound me doth rollA sequestration bare.Too far alike we were,Too farDissimilar.For…
Come you living or dead to me, out of the silt of the Past,
Come with your dear and dreadful face through the passes of Sleep,The terrible mask, and the face it masked–the face you did not keep?You are neither two nor one–I would you were one or two,For your awful self is embalmed in the fragrant self I knew:And Above may ken, and Beneath may ken, what I…
What heart could have thought you? —
(O filigree petal!)Fashioned so purely,Fragilely, surely,From what ParadisalImagineless metal,Too costly for cost?Who hammered you, wrought you,From argentine vapor? —‘God was my shaper.Passing surmisal,He hammered, He wrought me,From curled silver vapor,To lust of His mind —Thou could’st not have thought me!So purely, so palely,Tinily, surely,Mightily, frailly,Insculped and embossed,With His hammer of wind,And His graver of frost.’