Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire

For, who decries the loved, decries the lover;Yet what man lauds the thing he’s thrown away?Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught,The more fool I, so great a fool to adore;But if you’re that high goddess once I thought,The more your godhead is, I lose the more.Dear fool, pity the fool who thought…

(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)I’ll think of Love in books, Love without end;Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;And evening hush, broken by homing wings;And Song’s nobility, and Wisdom holy,That…

The kind luxurious lapse and stealShapes all his universe to feelAnd know and be; the clinging streamCloses his memory, glooms his dream,Who lips the roots o’ the shore, and glidesSuperb on unreturning tides.Those silent waters weave for himA fluctuant mutable world and dim,Where wavering masses bulge and gapeMysterious, and shape to shapeDies momently through whorl…

Into the shade and loneliness and mireOf the last land! There, waiting patiently,One day, I think, I’ll feel a cool wind blowing,See a slow light across the Stygian tide,And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,Pass, light as ever,…

With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,And all the little emptiness of love!Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,Where…

This April twilight on the riverStirs anguish in the heart of me.For the fast world in that rare glimmerPuts on the witchery of a dream,The straight grey buildings, richly dimmer,The fiery windows, and the streamWith willows leaning quietly over,The still ecstatic fading skies . . .And all these, like a waiting lover,Murmur and gleam, lift…

With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,And all the little emptiness of love!Oh! we who have known shame, we have found release there,Where…

Night was void arms and you a phantom still,And day your far light swaying down the street.As never fool for love, I starved for you;My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,And your remembered smell most agony.Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiverAnd…

And cried upon their revelry:‘O white companionship! You onlyIn love, in faith unbroken dwell,Friends radiant and inseparable!’Light-heart and glad they seemed to meAnd merry comrades (EVEN SOGOD OUT OF HEAVEN MAY LAUGH TO SEETHE HAPPY CROWDS; AND NEVER KNOWTHAT IN HIS LONE OBSCURE DISTRESSEACH WALKETH IN A WILDERNESS).But I, remembering, pitied wellAnd loved them, who,…

Its laughter with the dancing light o’ the spray,And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,And sent you following the white waves of sea,And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,Stray buds from that old dust of misery,Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.So lightly I played with those dark memories,Just as a…

He likes love-music that is cheap;Likes women in a crowded place;And wants to hear the noise they’re making.His heavy eyelids droop half-over,Great pouches swing beneath his eyes.He listens, thinks himself the lover,Heaves from his stomach wheezy sighs;He likes to feel his heart’s a-breaking.The music swells. His gross legs quiver.His little lips are bright with slime.The…

But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.These laid the world away; poured out the redSweet wine of youth; gave up the years to beOf work and joy, and that unhoped serene,That men call age; and those who would have been,Their sons, they gave, their immortality.Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,Holiness,…

You said, ‘Through glory and ecstasy we pass;Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,When we are old, are old. . . .’ ‘And when we dieAll’s over that is ours; and life burns onThrough other lovers, other lips,’ said I,— ‘Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!’‘We are Earth’s best,…

Night was void arms and you a phantom still,And day your far light swaying down the street.As never fool for love, I starved for you;My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,And your remembered smell most agony.Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiverAnd…

Hast thou relumed within our eyes,Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .A certain odour on the wind,Thy hidden face beyond the west,These things have called us; on a questOlder than any road we trod,More endless than desire. . . .Far God,Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fillsThe soul with longing for…

Ye are sober and dull through the common day,But now it is night!It is shameful night, and God is asleep!(Have you not felt the quick fires that creepThrough the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).The house is dumb;The night calls out to you.—Come, ah, come!Down the…

The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,And sunset, and the colours of the earth.These had seen movement, and heard music; knownSlumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.There are waters blown by changing winds to laughterAnd lit by…

As wine that blushes water through. And soon,Out of the gold air of the afternoon,One knelt before her: hair he had, or fire,Bound back above his ears with golden wire,Baring the eager marble of his face.Not man’s nor woman’s was the immortal graceRounding the limbs beneath that robe of white,And lighting the proud eyes with…