Of birds that pipe and sing
And boyhood’s melancholy!
I would not grudge the laughter,
The tears that followed after.
Oh for a day of youth,
A day of strength and passion,
Of words that told the truth
And deeds the truth would fashion!
I would not leave untasted
One glory while it lasted.
Oh for a day of days,
A day with you and pleasure,
Of love in all its ways
And life in all its measure!
Win me that day from sorrow,
And let me die to–morrow.
Had learned to fly on less substantial wingsTo a new Heaven, a sublimer goal.I thought that I was wise beneath the cowlOf my dead hopes, beyond all power of Spring’sMost eloquent music to again cajole,And that my service was the King of Kings.–But look, alas, how thoughtless thought can be,For to me thinking thus one…
By instinct of the eye or natural rule,That naked rocks are fairest, or flowers blowBest in their clefts, or that the world of snowHas other glory than of cold and ice.From our mother’s hand we viewed these things belowSenseless as goats which browse a precipice,Till we were taught to know them. With what tearsI con…
A love which is eternal begotten in a day.The ill is long past healing. Why should I speak to–day?For none have ears to hear, and, least of all, she.Alas I shall have lived unseen tho’ ever near,For ever at her side, for ever too alone.I shall have lived my life unknowing and unknown,Asking naught, daring…
And Esther had no soul which Heaven or HellCould touch by joy or soften by the rod.She could not really love me. The day came,How soon, how late, I need not to devise,When passion prayed its last, and only shameStood for my portion in a world grown wise,And I went forth for ever from her…
The sleeping treason of some false misprision,Some silent mystery of shortened breath,Not dead in truth for ever and to him,Or to that other life his dream foretold:–Her murderers these. And in his heart the whimRose he should draw her from her cincture cold,And set his lips upon her lips once more,And free her spirit thus…
I like the joyous morning air,And the crowing of the cocks.I like the calm of the early fields,The ducks asleep by the lake,The quiet hour which Nature yieldsBefore mankind is awake.I like the pheasants and feeding thingsOf the unsuspicious morn;I like the flap of the wood-pigeon’s wingsAs she rises from the corn.I like the blackbird’s…
