Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
    Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,
Of some fresh-awakened bird,
    The querulous, shrill tune.


The dark mist hides the face
Of the dim land: no trace
Of rock or river's place
    In the thick air is drawn;
But dripping grass smells sweet,
And rustling branches meet,
And sounding water greet
    The slow, sure, sacred dawn.


Past is the long black night,
With its keen lightnings white,
Thunder and floods: new light
    The glimmering low east streaks.
The dense clouds part: between
Their jagged rents are seen
Pale reaches blue and green,
    As the mirk curtain b...

Now was the sun so station'd, as when first
His early radiance quivers on the heights,
Where stream'd his Maker's blood, while Libra hangs
Above Hesperian Ebro, and new fires
Meridian flash on Ganges' yellow tide.

So day was sinking, when the' angel of God
Appear'd before us. Joy was in his mien.
Forth of the flame he stood upon the brink,
And with a voice, whose lively clearness far
Surpass'd our human, "Blessed are the pure
In heart," he Sang: then near him as we came,
"Go ye not further, holy spirits!" he cried,
"Ere the fire pierce you: enter in; and list
Attentive to the song ye hear from thence."

I, when I heard his saying, was as one
Laid in the grave. My hands together clasp'd,
And upward stretching, on the fire I look'd,
And busy fanc...

Grace, Beauty and Caprice
Build this golden portal;
Graceful women, chosen men,
Dazzle every mortal.
Their sweet and lofty countenance
His enchanted food;
He need not go to them, their forms
Beset his solitude.
He looketh seldom in their face,
His eyes explore the ground,--
The green grass is a looking-glass
Whereon their traits are found.
Little and less he says to them,
So dances his heart in his breast;
Their tranquil mien bereaveth him
Of wit, of words, of rest.
Too weak to win, too fond to shun
The tyrants of his doom,
The much deceived Endymion
Slips behind a tomb.

    Across the mountains and the hills,
Across the valleys and the swelling seas,
    By lakes and rivers whose deep murmur fills
Earth's dreams with sweet prophetic melodies,
    Together have we come unto this place,
    And here we say farewell a little space:

    You, backward turning through the land,
To tarry 'mid its beauty yet awhile--
    I, o'er the River, to another strand
With cheerful heart, so part we with a smile.
    Shall space have any power o'er god-like souls?
    Love shall bridge o'er the stream that 'twixt us rolls!

    Together wend we to the tide,
And as the first wave wets my foot, we part;--
    E'en now methinks I see the other side;
And, though the stream be swift, a steady heart
    And stalwart arm shall quell its col...

October woods wherein
The boy's dream comes to pass,
And Nature squanders on the boy her pomp,
And crowns him with a more than royal crown,
And unimagined splendor waits his steps.
The gazing urchin walks through tents of gold,
Through crimson chambers, porphyry and pearl,
Pavilion on pavilion, garlanded,
Incensed and starred with lights and airs and shapes,
Color and sound, music to eye and ear,
Beyond the best conceit of pomp or power.

The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:--

"The fate of the man-child,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

"Erect as a sunbeam,
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.

"The waves, unashamèd,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,
Primordial wh...

When peevish flaws his soul have stirred
    To fretful tears for crossed desires,
Obedient to his mother's word
    My child to banishment retires.

As disappears the moon, when wind
    Heaps miles of mist her visage o'er,
So vanisheth his face behind
    The cloud of his white pinafore.

I cannot then come near my child--
    A gulf between of gainful loss;
He to the infinite exiled--
    I waiting, for I cannot cross.

Ah then, what wonder, passing show,
    The Isis-veil behind it brings--
Like that self-coffined creatures know,
    Remembering legs, foreseeing wings!

Mysterious moment! When or how
    Is the bewildering change begun?
Hid in far deeps the awful now
    When turns his being to the sun!

A light...

        We sang old love-songs on the way
            In sad and merry snatches,
        Your fingers o'er the strings astray
            Strumming the random catches.

        And ever, as the skiff plied on
            Among the trailing willows,
        Trekking the darker deeps to shun
            The gleaming sandy shallows,

        It seemed that we had, ages gone,
            In some far summer weather,
        When this same faery moonlight shone,
            Sung these same songs together.

        And every grassy cape we passed,
            And every reedy island,
        Even the bank'd cloud in the west
            That loomed a sombre highland;

        And you, with dewmist on your hair,
            Crowned with a wreat...

We were a baker's dozen in the house - six women and six men
    Besides myself; and all of us had known
Those benefits supposed to come from school and church and brush and pen,
    And opportunities of being thrown
In contact with the cultured and the gifted people of the day.
    Being the thirteenth one among six pairs
I deemed it wise to keep apart and let the others have their say:
    And from my vantage-place upon the stairs,
Or in a corner, where I seemed to read, I listened for some word
    That would make life seem sweeter, or cast light
Upon the goal toward which all footsteps wend:    and this was what I heard
    Throughout each day and half of every night.
The men talked business, politics, and trade;
    They told of safe investments, and great chances
...

(Old French)

Memories long in music sleeping,
    No more sleeping,
        No more dumb;
Delicate phantoms softly creeping
    Softly back from the old-world come.

Faintest odours around them straying,
    Suddenly straying
        In chambers dim;
Whispering silks in order swaying,
    Glimmering gems on shoulders slim:

Courage advancing strong and tender,
    Grace untender
        Fanning desire;
Suppliant conquest, proud surrender,
    Courtesy cold of hearts on fire---

Willowy billowy now they're bending,
    Low they're bending
        Down-dropt eyes;
Stately measure and stately ending,
    Music sobbing, and a dream that dies.

The Day brims high its ewer
Of blue with starry light,
And crowns as King that hewer
Of clouds (which take their flight
Across the sky) old Night.

And Tempest there, who houses
Within them, like a cave,
Lies down and dreams and drowses
Upon the Earth's huge grave,
With wandering wind and wave.

The storm moves on; and winging
From out the east a bird,
The moon drifts, calmly bringing
A message and a word
Of peace, in Heaven it heard.

Of peace and times called golden,
Whose beauty makes it glow
With love, like that of olden,
Which mortals used to know
There in the long-ago.

I Swayed upon the gaudy stern
The butt end of a steering oar,
And everywhere that I could turn
Men ran upon the shore.

And though I would have hushed the crowd,
There was no mother’s son but said,
‘What is the figure in a shroud
Upon a gaudy bed?’

And fishes bubbling to the brim
Cried out upon that thing beneath,
It had such dignity of limb,
By the sweet name of Death.

Though I’d my finger on my lip,
What could I but take up the song?
And fish and crowd and gaudy ship
Cried out the whole night long,

Crying amid the glittering sea,
Naming it with ecstatic breath,
Because it had such dignity
By the sweet name of Death.

They met but once, in youth's sweet hour,
    And never since that day
Hath absence, time, or grief had power
    To chase that dream away.
They've seen the suns of other skies,
    On other shores have sought delight;
But never more to bless their eyes
    Can come a dream so bright!
They met but once,--a day was all
    Of Love's young hopes they knew;
And still their hearts that day recall
    As fresh as then it flew.

Sweet dream of youth! oh, ne'er again
    Let either meet the brow
They left so smooth and smiling then,
    Or see what it is now.
For, Youth, the spell was only thine,
    From thee alone the enchantment flows,
That makes the world around thee shine
    With light thyself bestows.
They met but once,--oh, ne'er agai...

Three are emerald pools in the sea,
And wing-like flashes of light;
The sea is bound with the heavens
In a large delight.

Night comes out of the east
And rushes down on the sun;
The emerald pools and the light pools
Are darkened and done.

Our boat dips and cleaves onward,
Careless of night or of light,
Following the line of her compass
By her engines' might.

Through the desert of air and of water;
Like the lonely soul of man,
Following her fate to the ending,
Unaware of the hidden plan.

Sure only of battle and longing,
Of the pain and the quest,
And beyond in the darkness somewhere
Sure of her rest.

Had I the gold that some so vainly spend,
For my lost loves a temple would I raise,
A shrine for each dear name: there should ascend
Incense for ever, and hymns of golden praise;
And I would live the remnant of my days,
Where hallowed windows cast their painted gleams,
At prayer before each consecrated face,
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.

And each fair altar, like a priest, I'd tend,
Trimming the tapers to a constant blaze,
And to each lovely and beloved friend
Garlands I'd bring, and virginal soft sprays
From April's bodice, and moon-breasted May's,
And there should be a sound for ever of streams
And birds 'mid happy leaves in that still place, -
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.

O'er missals of hushed memories would I ben...

Softly, softly, Niccolo Amati!
What can put such fancies in your head?
There, go dream of your blue-skied Cremona,
While I ponder something you have said.

Something in that last low lovely cadence
Piercing the green dusk alone and far,
Named a new room in the house of knowledge,
Waiting unfrequented, door ajar.

While you dream then, let me unmolested
Pass in childish wonder through that door,--
Breathless, touch and marvel at the beauties
Soon my wiser elders must explore.

Ah, my Niccolo, it's no great science
We shall ever conquer, you and I.
Yet, when you are nestled at my shoulder,
Others guess not half that we descry.

As all sight is but a finer hearing,
And all color but a finer sound,
Beauty, but the reach of lyric freed...

Upon time's surging, billowy sea
A ship now slowly disappears,
With freight no human eye can see,
But weighing just one hundred years.

Their sighs, their tears, their weary moans,
Their joy and pleasure, pomp and pride,
Their angry and their gentle tones,
Beneath its waves forever hide.

Yes, sunk within oblivion's waves,
They'll partly live in memory;
To youth, who will their secrets crave,
Mostly exist in history.

Ah, what a truth steps in this strain
They are not lost within time's sea;
Their words and actions live again,
And blight or light eternity!

A new ship comes within our view,
Laden with dreams both sad and blest;
To youth they're tinged with roseate hue;
To weary ones bring longed-for rest.

And still...

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine,
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!", but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o'er!
"No more, no more, no more",
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy foo...