With shadowy pen I write,

Lured you to floatAnd fight with bees round this one flowering tree?Petulant imps of light,What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumesThrilled through the nightAnd drew you to this hive of rosy bloom?One tree, and one alone,Of all that load this magic air with spice,Claims for its ownYour brave migration out of Paradise;Claims you, and guides…

Might have been a soldier, sailor,Tinker, tailor(Never a beggar-man, though, nor thief).Might have been, perhaps, a king,Or an Indian chief.He remained a City clerkDoubled on a great high stool,Totting up, from dawn to dark,Figures, figures, figures, figures,Red ink, black ink, double rule,Tot-tot-totting with his pen,Up and down and round again –Curious Old Grey Squirrel.No one…

And my true love cried ‘Who knocks?’ and I said‘It is I.’And Love looked down from a lattice aboveWhere the roses were dry as the lips of the dead:‘There is not room in the House of LoveFor you both,’ he said.I plucked a leaf from the porch and creptAway through a desert of scoffs and…

Stared at the dying fire. ‘I’d like them allTo understand, when I am gone,’ he muttered.‘But how to do it delicately! I can’tApologize. I’ll hint at it … in verse;And, to be sure that Rosalind reads it through,I’ll make it an appendix to my will!’–Still cynical, you see. He couldn’t help it.He had seen much,…

I came on an elvish painterAnd watched as his picture grew,A harebell nodded beside him.He dipt his brush in the dew.And it might be the wild thyme round himThat shone in the dark strange ring;But his brushes were bees’ antennae,His knife was a wasp’s blue sting;And his gorgeous exquisite paletteWas a butterfly’s fan-shaped wing.And he…

And the music’s not immortal; but the world has made it sweetAnd fulfilled it with the sunset glow;And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the painThat surround the singing organ like a large eternal light;And they’ve given it a glory and a part to play againIn the Symphony that rules the day…