I.

I stood in an ancient garden
With high red walls around;
Over them grey and green lichens
In shadowy arabesque wound.

The topmost climbing blossoms
On fields kine-haunted looked out;
But within were shelter and shadow,
With daintiest odours about.

There were alleys and lurking arbours,
Deep glooms into which to dive.
The lawns were as soft as fleeces,
Of daisies I counted but five.

The sun-dial was so aged
It had gathered a thoughtful grace;
'Twas the round-about of the shadow
That so had furrowed its face.

The flowers were all of the oldest
That ever in garden sprung;
Red, and blood-red, and dark purple
The rose-lamps flaming hung.

Along the borders fringed
With broad thick edges of box

His glory, by whose might all things are mov'd,
Pierces the universe, and in one part
Sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less. In heav'n,
That largeliest of his light partakes, was I,
Witness of things, which to relate again
Surpasseth power of him who comes from thence;
For that, so near approaching its desire
Our intellect is to such depth absorb'd,
That memory cannot follow. Nathless all,
That in my thoughts I of that sacred realm
Could store, shall now be matter of my song.

Benign Apollo! this last labour aid,
And make me such a vessel of thy worth,
As thy own laurel claims of me belov'd.
Thus far hath one of steep Parnassus' brows
Suffic'd me; henceforth there is need of both
For my remaining enterprise Do thou
Enter into my bosom, and there br...

I.

This is the place where visions come to dance,
Dreams of the trees and flowers, glimmeringly;
Where the white moon and the pale stars can see,
Sitting with Legend and with dim Romance.
This is the place where all the silvery clans
Of Music meet: music of bird and bee;
Music of falling water; melody
Mated with magic, with her golden lance.
This is the place made holy by Love's feet,
And dedicate to wonder and to dreams,
The ministers of Beauty. 'Twas with these
Love filled the place, making all splendours meet
And all despairs, as once in woods and streams
Of Ida and the gold Hesperides.

II.

Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,
Between the river and the wooded hills,
Within a valley where the Springtime spills
Her ...

The stars cleave the sky.
    Yet for us they rest,
And their race-course high
    Is a shining nest!

The hours hurry on.
    But where is thy flight,
Soft pavilion
    Of motionless night?

Earth gives up her trees
    To the holy air;
They live in the breeze;
    They are saints at prayer!

Summer night, come from God,
    On your beauty, I see,
A still wave has flowed
    Of eternity!

Iron and granite and rust,
In a crumbling garden old,
Where the roses are paler than dust
And the lilies are green with gold,

Under the racing moon,
Inconscious of war or crime,
In a strange and ghostly noon,
It marks the oblivion of time.

The shadow steals through its arc,
Still as a frosted breath,
Fitful, gleaming, and dark
As the cold frustration of death.

But where the shadow may fall,
Whether to hurry or stay,
It matters little at all
To those who come that way.

For this is the dial of them
That have forgotten the world,
No more through the mad day-dream
Of striving and reason hurled.

Their heart as a little child
Only remembers the worth
Of beauty and love and the wild
Dark peace of the el...

Oh ye! who all life's energies combine
The fadeless laurel round your brows to twine,
Pause but one moment in your brief career,
Nor seek for glory in a mortal sphere.
Can figures traced upon the shifting sand
Washed by the mighty tide, its force withstand?
Time's stern resistless torrent onward flows,
The restless waves above your labours close,
And He who bids the bounding billows roll
Sweeps out the feeble record from the soul.

    The glorious hues that flush the evening sky
Melt into night, and on her bosom die;
Through the wide fields of heaven's immensity
The gold-tipped billows of that crimson sea
Flash on the awe-struck gazer's dazzled sight,
The rich out-gushings from the fount of light;
Yet oft, concealed beneath that splendid form,
We ha...

I.

Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced the crescent,
Up and far up and over, the heaven grew erubescent,
Vibrant with rose and with ruby from hands of the harpist Dawn,
Smiting symphonic fire on the firmament's barbition;
And the East was a priest who adored with offerings of gold and of gems,
And a wonderful carpet unrolled for the inaccessible hems
Of the glittering robes of her limbs; that, lily and amethyst,
Swept glorying on and on through temples of cloud and mist.

II.

Then out of the splendour and richness, that burned like a magic stone,
The torrent suffusion that deepened and dazzled and broadened and shone,
The pomp and the pageant of colour, triumphal procession of glare,
The sun, like a king in armour, breathing splendour from...

        I.

I dreamed last night once more I stood
Knee-deep in purple clover leas;
Your old home glimmered thro' its wood
Of dark and melancholy trees,
Where ev'ry sudden summer breeze
That wantoned o'er the solitude
The water's melody pursued,
And sleepy hummings of the bees.


        II.

And ankle-deep in violet blooms
Methought I saw you standing there,
A lawny light among the glooms,
A crown of sunlight on your hair;
Wild songsters singing every where
Made lightning with their glossy plumes;
About you clung the wild perfumes
And swooned along the shining air.


        III.

And then you called me, and my ears
Grew flattered with the music, led
In fancy back to sweeter years,
Far sweeter y...

1.

One morn before me were three figures seen,
I With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

2.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
How came ye muffled in so hush a masque?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain ha...

    A child was born in sin and shame,
    Wronged by his very birth,
    Without a home, without a name,
    One over in the earth.

    No wifely triumph he inspired,
    Allayed no husband's fear;
    Intruder bare, whom none desired,
    He had a welcome drear.

    Heaven's beggar, all but turned adrift
    For knocking at earth's gate,
    His mother, like an evil gift,
    Shunned him with sickly hate.

    And now the mistress on her knee
    The unloved baby bore,
    The while the servant sullenly
    Prepared to leave her door.

    Her eggs are dear to mother-dove,
    Her chickens to the hen;
    All young ones bring with them their love,
    Of sheep, or goats, or men!

    This one lone child shall no...

What dainty note of long-drawn melody
Athwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear,
Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by,


And with awakened consciousness we hear
The pipe of birds?    Look forth!    The sane, white day
Blesses the hilltops, and the sun is near.


All misty phantoms slowly roll away
With the night's vapors toward the western sky.
The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay


Blows toward us; soft the meadow-grasses lie,
Bearded with dew; the air is a caress;
The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary


Of eastern hills, the morning joyousness
Thrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong;
Night's fancies melt like dew.    So ends the song!

Poussin! most pleasantly thy pictur'd scenes
Beguile the lonely hour; I sit and gaze
With lingering eye, till charmed FANCY makes
The lovely landscape live, and the rapt soul
From the foul haunts of herded humankind
Flies far away with spirit speed, and tastes
The untainted air, that with the lively hue
Of health and happiness illumes the cheek
Of mountain LIBERTY. My willing soul
All eager follows on thy faery flights
FANCY! best friend; whose blessed witcheries
With loveliest prospects cheat the traveller
O'er the long wearying desart of the world.
Nor dost thou FANCY with such magic mock
My heart, as, demon-born, old Merlin knew,
Or Alquif, or Zarzafiel's sister sage,
Whose vengeful anguish for so many a year
Held in the jacinth sepulchre entranced

They mouth love's language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of tongue.

This grey that stares
Lies not, stark skin and bone.
Leave greasy lips their kissing. None
Will choose her what you see to mouth upon.
Dire hunger holds his hour.
Pluck forth your heart, saltblood, a fruit of tears.
Pluck and devour!

The waves were weary, and they went to sleep;
    The winds were hushed;
    The starlight flushed
The furrowed face of all the mighty deep.

The billows yester eve so dark and wild,
    Wore strangely now
    A calm upon their brow,
Like that which rests upon a cradled child.

The sky was bright, and every single star,
    With gleaming face,
    Was in its place,
And looked upon the sea -- so fair and far.

And all was still -- still as a temple dim,
    When low and faint,
    As murmurs plaint,
Dies the last note of the Vesper hymn.

A bark slept on the sea, and in the bark
    Slept Mary's Son --
    The only One
Whose face is light! where all, all else, is dark.

His brow was heavenward turned, His face was fa...

Darlings of children and of bard,
Perfect kinds by vice unmarred,
All of worth and beauty set
Gems in Nature's cabinet;
These the fables she esteems
Reality most like to dreams.
Welcome back, you little nations,
Far-travelled in the south plantations;
Bring your music and rhythmic flight,
Your colors for our eyes' delight:
Freely nestle in our roof,
Weave your chamber weatherproof;
And your enchanting manners bring
And your autumnal gathering.
Exchange in conclave general
Greetings kind to each and all,
Conscious each of duty done
And unstainèd as the sun.

I.

O, where are the friends that in youth we once knew,
Whose smiles were like sunshine, whose hearts were so true?
Alas! they are lost in the darkness and gloom
That veils them from sight in the cold, silent tomb!


II.

O, where are the years that forever have fled,
And over Life's morning their radiance shed?
With the Past written down on the unending scroll
Where Time--grim destroyer--his victims enroll!


III.

O, where are the fancies, the visions, the dreams,
That filled the young breast--with which memory teems?
They have faded away--from life they have passed--
Like stars blotted out when the sky's overcast!


IV.

O, where are the hopes that have beckoned us on
With their beacons of light, throu...

Darkness had stretched its colour,
Deep blue across the pane:
No cloud to make night duller,
No moon with its tarnish stain;
But only here and there a star,
One sharp point of frosty fire,
Hanging infinitely far
In mockery of our life and death
And all our small desire.

Now in this hour of waking
From under brows of stone,
A new pale day is breaking
And the deep night is gone.
Sordid now, and mean and small
The daylight world is seen again,
With only the veils of mist that fall
Deaf and muffling over all
To hide its ugliness and pain.

But to-day this dawn of meanness
Shines in my eyes, as when
The new world's brightness and cleanness
Broke on the first of men.
For the light that shows the huddled things
Of this cl...

The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind;
It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind.
To-day was past and dead for me for from to-day my feet had run
Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon.
On temple top and palace roof the burnished gold flung back the rays
Of a red sunset that was dead and lost beyond a million days.
The tower of heaven turns darker blue; a starry sparkle now begins;
The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sins
Come back to me. I walk beneath the shadowy multitude of towers;
Within the gloom the fountain jets its pallid mist in lily flowers.
The waters lull me, and the scent of many gardens, and I hear
Familiar voices, and the voice I love is whispering in my ear.
...