LIGHT-WINGED Smoke, Icarian bird,

Untarnished fair as is the violetOr anemone, when the spring stew themBy some meandering rivulet, which makeThe best philosophy untrue that aimsBut to console man for his grievences.I have remembered when the winter came,High in my chamber in the frosty nights,When in the still light of the cheerful moon,On the every twig and rail and…

Untarnished fair as is the violetOr anemone, when the spring strews themBy some meandering rivulet, which makeThe best philosophy untrue that aimsBut to console man for his grievancesI have remembered when the winter came,High in my chamber in the frosty nights,When in the still light of the cheerful moon,On every twig and rail and jutting…

As one she had designed for Beauty’s toy,But after manned him for her own strong-hold.On every side he open was as day,That you might see no lack of strength within,For walls and ports do only serve alwayFor a pretence to feebleness and sin.Say not that Cćsar was victorious,With toil and strife who stormed the House…

But I could not both liveand utter it.

Where it ends.It fills a few hollows,And makes banks for the swallows,It sets the sand a-blowing,And the blackberries a-growing.

Say, thou modern-winged antique,Was thy mistress ever sick?In each heaving of thy wingThou dost health and leisure bring,Thou dost waive disease and painAnd resume new life again.

Dangling this way and that, their linksWere made so loose and wide,Methinks,For milder weather.A bunch of violets without their roots,And sorrel intermixed,Encircled by a wisp of strawOnce coiled about their shoots,The lawBy which I’m fixed.A nosegay which Time clutched from outThose fair Elysian fields,With weeds and broken stems, in haste,Doth make the rabble routThat wasteThe…

Fountain head and source of rivers,Dew-cloth, dream drapery,And napkin spread by fays;Drifting meadow of the air,Where bloom the dasied banks and violets,And in whose fenny labyrinthThe bittern booms and heron wades;Spirit of the lake and seas and rivers,Bear only purfumes and the scentOf healing herbs to just men’s fields!

Ye sweet waters of my brain,When shall I look,Or cast the hook,In your waves again?Silver eels,Wooden creels,These the baits that still allure,And dragon-flyThat floated by,May they still endure?

With tongs or shovel,And ringing round and round,Out of this hovelIt makes an eastern temple by the sound.At first I thought a cow bell right at handMid birches sounded o’er the open land,Where I plucked flowersMany years ago,Spending midsummer hoursWith such secure delight they hardly seemed to flow.

But I could not both liveand utter it.

Which were easier to state,All my love or all my hate.Surely, surely, thou wilt trust meWhen I say thou dost disgust me.O, I hate thee with a hateThat would fain annihilate;Yet sometimes against my will,My dear friend, I love thee still.It were treason to our love,And a sin to God above,One iota to abateOf a…