Who goes amid the green wood
With springtide all adorning her?
Who goes amid the merry green wood
To make it merrier?

Who passes in the sunlight
By ways that know the light footfall?
Who passes in the sweet sunlight
With mien so virginal?

The ways of all the woodland
Gleam with a soft and golden fire,
For whom does all the sunny woodland
Carry so brave attire?

O, it is for my true love
The woods their rich apparel wear,
O, it is for my own true love,
That is so young and fair.

Fell the snow on the festival's vigil
And surpliced the city in white;
I wonder who wove the pure flakelets?
Ask the Virgin, or God, or the night.

It fitted the Feast: 'twas a symbol,
And earth wore the surplice at morn,
As pure as the vale's stainless lily
For Mary, the sinlessly born;

For Mary, conceived in all sinlessness;
And the sun, thro' the clouds of the East,
With the brightest and fairest of flashes,
Fringed the surplice of white for the Feast.

And round the horizon hung cloudlets,
Pure stoles to be worn by the Feast;
While the earth and the heavens were waiting
For the beautiful Mass of the priest.

I opened my window, half dreaming;
My soul went away from my eyes,
And my heart began saying "Hail Marys"
Somewher...

With a sweeter voice than birds
    Dare to twitter in their sleep,
Pipe for me a tune of words,
    Till my dancing fancies leap
Into freedom vaster far
Than the realms of Reason are!
Sing for me with wilder fire
    Than the lover ever sung,
From the time he twanged the lyre
    When the world was baby-young.

O my maiden Autumn, you -
You have filled me through and through
With a passion so intense,
All of earthly eloquence
    Fails, and falls, and swoons away
In your presence.    Like as one
Who essays to look the sun
    Fairly in the face, I say,
Though my eyes you dazzle blind
Greater dazzled is my mind.
So, my Autumn, let me kneel
    At your feet and worship you!
Be my sweetheart; let me feel
Your caress; and t...

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Thee amid the daffodils.
Golden wealth thy basket fills;
Golden blossoms at thy breast;
Golden hair that shames the West;
Golden sunlight round thy head!
Ah! the golden years have fled;
Thee have reft, and me have left
Here alone, thy loss to mourn.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Her, as white and still she lies:
Death has woo'd and won his prize.
White the blossoms at her breast;
White and still her face at rest;
White the moonbeams round her head.
Ah! the wintry years have fled;
Comfort lent and patience sent,
And my grief is easier borne.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still in dreams thou com'st to me;
Every night art at my side,
Half my bride, and half...

My maiden she proved false to me;

To hate all joys I soon began,

Then to a flowing stream I ran,
The stream ran past me hastily.

There stood I fix'd, in mute despair;

My head swam round as in a dream;

I well-nigh fell into the stream,
And earth seem'd with me whirling there.

Sudden I heard a voice that cried

I had just turn'd my face from thence

It was a voice to charm each sense:
"Beware, for deep is yonder tide!"

A thrill my blood pervaded now,

I look'd and saw a beauteous maid

I asked her name twas Kate, she said
"Oh lovely Kate! how kind art thou!

"From death I have been sav'd by thee,

'Tis through thee only that I live;

Little 'twere life alone to give,
My j...

Had we but met in other days,
Had we but loved in other ways,
Another light and hope had shone
    On your life and my own.

In sweet but hopeless reveries
I fancy how your wistful eyes
Had saved me, had I known their power
    In fate's imperious hour;

How loving you, beloved of God,
And following you, the path I trod
Had led me, through your love and prayers,
    To God's love unawares:

And how our beings joined as one
Had passed through checkered shade and sun,
Until the earth our lives had given,
    With little change, to heaven.

God knows why this was not to be.
You bloomed from childhood far from me.
The sunshine of the favoured place
    That knew your youth and grace.

And when your eyes, so fair and fre...

Call off your eyes from care
By some determined deftness; put forth joys
Dear as excess without the core that cloys,
And charm Life's lourings fair.

Exalt and crown the hour
That girdles us, and fill it full with glee,
Blind glee, excelling aught could ever be
Were heedfulness in power.

Send up such touching strains
That limitless recruits from Fancy's pack
Shall rush upon your tongue, and tender back
All that your soul contains.

For what do we know best?
That a fresh love-leaf crumpled soon will dry,
And that men moment after moment die,
Of all scope dispossest.

If I have seen one thing
It is the passing preciousness of dreams;
That aspects are within us; and who seems
Most kingly is the King.

1867: WESTBOURNE...

I seek no more to bridge the gulf that lies
Betwixt our separate ways;
For vainly my heart prays,
Hope droops her head and dies;
I see the sad, tired answer in your eyes.

I did not heed, and yet the stars were clear;
Dreaming that love could mate
Lives grown so separate;--
But at the best, my dear,
I see we should not have been very near.

I knew the end before the end was nigh:
The stars have grown so plain;
Vainly I sigh, in vain
For things that come to some,
But unto you and me will never come.

Ye shadowy forms, again ye're drawing near,

So wont of yore to meet my troubled gaze!
Were it in vain to seek to keep you here?

Loves still my heart that dream of olden days?
Oh, come then! and in pristine force appear,

Parting the vapor mist that round me plays!
My bosom finds its youthful strength again,
Feeling the magic breeze that marks your train.

Ye bring the forms of happy days of yore,

And many a shadow loved attends you too;
Like some old lay, whose dream was well nigh o'er,

First-love appears again, and friendship true;
Upon life's labyrinthine path once more

Is heard the sigh, and grief revives anew;
The friends are told, who, in their hour of pride,
Deceived by fortune, vanish'd from my side.

No long...

Lady, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn,
Come thou with me to Love's enchanted bower
High overhead the trellised roses burn;
Beneath thy feet behold the feathery fern, -
A leaf without a flower.

What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet,
And have been lovely in their beauteous prime,
While the bare frond seems ever to repeat,
"For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet
The joyous flowering time!"

Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to tread
And flowers to cherish; summer round thee glows;
Wait not till autumn's fading robes are shed,
But while its petals still are burning red
Gather life's full-blown rose!

I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road
May thence remount at ease. The aged Man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude:
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers

Until I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf though shouting wind goes by,
Dumb in a storm of mirth;

Until my heart is quenched at length
And I have left the land of men,
Oh, let me love with all my strength
Careless if I am loved again.

I.

My love went berrying
Where brooks were merrying
And wild wings ferrying
    Heaven's amethyst;
The wildflowers blessed her,
My dearest Hester,
The winds caressed her,
    The sunbeams kissed.


II.

I followed, carrying
Her basket; varying
Fond hopes of marrying
    With hopes denied;
Both late and early
She deemed me surly,
And bowed her curly
    Fair head and sighed:


III.

"The skies look lowery;
It will he showery;
No longer flowery
    The way I find.
No use in going.
'T will soon be snowing
If you keep growing
    Much more unkind."


IV.

Then looked up tearfully.
And I, all fearfully,
Replied, "My dear, fully
    Will I ex...

First-born of the creating Voice!
Minister of God's spirit, who wast sent
To wait upon Him first, what time He went
Moving about 'mid the tumultuous noise
Of each unpiloted element
Upon the face of the void formless deep!
Thou who didst come unbodied and alone,
Ere yet the sun was set his rule to keep,
Or ever the moon shone,
Or e'er the wandering star-flocks forth were driven!
Thou garment of the Invisible, whose skirt
Falleth on all things from the lofty heaven!
Thou Comforter, be with me as thou wert
When first I longed for words, to be
A radiant garment for my thought, like thee.

We lay us down in sorrow,
Wrapt in the old mantle of our mother Night;
In vexing dreams we 'strive until the morrow;
Grief lifts our eyelids up--and lo, the light!...

The Radiant Rulers of Mystic Regions
Where souls of artists are fitted for birth
Gathered together their lovely legions
And fashioned a woman to shine on earth.
    They bathed her in splendour,
    They made her tender,
They gave her a nature both sweet and wild;
They gave her emotions like storm-stirred oceans,
And they gave her the heart of a little child.

These Radiant Rulers (who are not human
Nor yet divine like the gods above)
Poured all their gifts in the soul of woman,
That fragile vessel meant only for love.
    Still more they taught her,
    Still more they brought her,
Till they gave her the world for a harp one day:
    And they bade her string it,
    They bade her ring it,
While the stars all wondered to hear her play.

Sento d' un foco.


Far off with fire I feel a cold face lit,
        That makes me burn, the while itself doth freeze:
        Two fragile arms enchain me, which with ease,
        Unmoved themselves, can move weights infinite.
A soul none knows but I, most exquisite,
        That, deathless, deals me death, my spirit sees:
        I meet with one who, free, my heart doth seize:
        And who alone can cheer, hath tortured it.
How can it be that from one face like thine
        My own should feel effects so contrary,
        Since ill comes not from things devoid of ill?
That loveliness perchance doth make me pine,
        Even as the sun, whose fiery beams we see,
        Inflames the world, while he is temperate still.

Roses, brier on brier,
Like a hedge of fire,
Walled it from the world and rolled
Crimson 'round it; manifold
Blossoms, 'mid which once of old
Walked my Heart's Desire.

There the golden Hours
Dwelt; and 'mid the bowers
Beauty wandered like a maid;
And the Dreams that never fade
Sat within its haunted shade
Gazing at the flowers.

There the winds that vary
Melody and marry
Perfume unto perfume, went,
Whispering to the buds, that bent,
Messages whose wonderment
Made them sweet to carry.

There the waters hoary
Murmured many a story
To the leaves that leaned above,
Listening to their tales of love,
While the happiness thereof
Flushed their green with glory.

There the sunset's shimmer
'Mid the bower...

I.

O Dark-Eyed goddess of the marble brow,
Whose look is silence and whose touch is night,
Who walkest lonely through the world, O thou,
Who sittest lonely with Life's blown-out light;
Who in the hollow hours of night's noon
Criest like some lost child;
Whose anguish-fevered eyeballs seek the moon
To cool their pulses wild.
Thou who dost bend to kiss Joy's sister cheek,
Turning its rose to alabaster; yea,
Thou who art terrible and mad and meek,
Why in my heart art thou enshrined to-day?
O Sorrow say, O say!

II.

Now Spring is here and all the world is white,
I will go forth, and where the forest robes
Itself in green, and every hill and height
Crowns its fair head with blossoms, spirit globes
Of hyacinth and crocus dashed with d...