I said to Love,

No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, wherebyI may picture her there;And in vain do I urge my unsightTo conceive my lost prizeAt her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light,And with laughter her eyes.What scenes spread around her last days,Sad, shining, or dim?Did her gifts and…

And I still left where the fair was?…Much have I seen of neighbour loungersMaking a lusty showing,Each now past all knowing.IIThere is an air of blanknessIn the street and the littered spaces;Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highwayWizen themselves to lankness;Kennels dribble dankness.IIIFolk all fade. And whither,As I wait alone where the fair was?Into the clammy and…

The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive dayFetched back from its thickening shroud of gray.Hence the only primeAnd real love-rhymeThat I know by heart,And that leaves no smart,Is the purl of a little valley fallAbout three spans wide and two spans tallOver a table of solid rock,And into a scoop of the self-same block;The purl…

And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest,My perished people who housed them here come back to me.They come and seat them around in their mouldy places,Now and then bending towards me a glance of wistfulness,A strange upbraiding smile upon all their faces,And in the bearing of each a passive tristfulness.‘Do…

The rime was on the spray,And starlight lit my lonesomenessWhen I set out for LyonnesseA hundred miles away.What would bechance at LyonnesseWhile I should sojourn thereNo prophet durst declare,Nor did the wisest wizard guessWhat would bechance at LyonnesseWhile I should sojourn there.When I came back from LyonnesseWith magic in my eyes,All marked with mute surmiseMy…

‘In one brief hour?And away with thee from a loveless bedTo a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,And be thine own unseparated,And challenge the world’s white glower?IIShe quickened her feet, and met him whereThey had predesigned:And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the airUpon whirling wheels; till the will to bindHer life with his made…

There will awayThis sense of sorrow.Then let us borrowHope, for a gleamingSoon will be streaming,Dimmed by no gray –No gray!While the winds wing usSighs from The Gone,Nearer to dawnMinute-beats bring us;When there will sing usLarks of a gloryWaiting our storyFurther anon –Anon!Doff the black token,Don the red shoon,Right and retuneViol-strings broken;Null the words spokenIn speeches…

Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely balladingThe Mother’s smiling reign.‘Why warbles he that skies are fairAnd coombs alight,’ she cried, ‘and fallows gay,When I have placed no sunshine in the airOr glow on earth to-day?’”Tis in the comedy of thingsThat such should be,’ returned the one of Doom;‘Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,And he shall…

Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico,We gained Caligula’s dissolving pile.And each ranked ruin tended to beguileThe outer sense, and shape itself as thoughIt wore its marble hues, its pristine glowOf scenic frieze and pompous peristyle.When lo, swift hands, on strings nigh over-head,Began to melodize a waltz by Strauss:It stirred me as I stood, in Caesar’s house,Raised…

At her grave, as no other grave where there?’‘If your great gaunt eyes so importuneHer soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon,Maybe you’ll raise her phantom soon!’‘Why, fool, it is what I would rather seeThan all the living folk there be;But alas, there is no such joy for me!’‘Ah – she was one you…

His love was fresh as apple-bloothBy Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.And duly he entreated herTo be his tender minister,And call him aye her own.Fair Jenny’s life had hardly beenA life of modesty;At Casterbridge experience keenOf many loves had sheFrom scarcely sixteen years above:Among them sundry troopers ofThe King’s-Own Cavalry.But each with charger, sword, and gun,Had bluffed…

I look behind at the fading byway,And see on its slope, now glistening wet,Distinctly yetMyself and a girlish form benightedIn dry March weather. We climb the roadBeside a chaise. We had just alightedTo ease the sturdy pony’s loadWhen he sighed and slowed.What we did as we climbed, and what we talked ofMatters not much, nor…

And birds are fled;But summer songsters pipe to me,And petals spread,For what I dreamt of secretlyHis lips have said!IIO ’tis a fine May morn, they say,And blooms have blown;But wild and wintry is my day,My birds make moan;For he who vowed leaves me to payAlone–alone!

Who makest Life become, –As though by labouring all-unknowingly,Like one whom reveries numb.How much of consciousness informs Thy willThy biddings, as if blind,Of death-inducing kind,Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fillBut moments in Thy mind.Perhaps Thy ancient rote-restricted waysThy ripening rule transcends;That listless effort tendsTo grow percipient with advance of days,And with percipience mends.For,…

But that I was in love with a dead manNever suspected he.He searched for the trace of a pictured face,He watched each missive come,And a note that seemed like a love-lineMade him look frozen and glum.He dogged my feet to the city street,He followed me to the sea,But not to the neighbouring churchyardDid he dream…

In ruthless disdain, –Her who but latelyHad shivered with painAs at touch of dishonourIf there had lit on herSo coldly, so straightlySuch arrows of rain:One who to shelterHer delicate headWould quicken and quickenEach tentative treadIf drops chanced to pelt herThat summertime spillsIn dust-paven rillsWhen thunder-clouds thickenAnd birds close their bills.Would that I lay thereAnd she…

Light in their loving as soldiers can be –First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing themNow, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . .II– Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchinglyTrudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,They stepping steadily-only too readily! –Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.IIIGreat guns were…

How happy days are made to be!‘Of such strange tidings what think ye,O birds in brown that peck and preen?Men know but little more than we!‘When I was borne from yonder treeIn bonds to them, I hoped to gleanHow happy days are made to be,‘And want and wailing turned to glee;Alas, despite their mighty mienMen…