To the tune of "Basciami vita mia."

Sleep, baby mine, Desire's nurse, Beauty, singeth;
Thy cries, O baby, set mine head on aching:
The babe cries, "'Way, thy love doth keep me waking."

Lully, lully, my babe, Hope cradle bringeth
Unto my children alway good rest taking:
The babe cries, "Way, thy love doth keep me waking."

Since, baby mine, from me thy watching springeth,
Sleep then a little, pap Content is making;
The babe cries, "Nay, for that abide I waking."

I.

The scourge of life, and death's extreme disgrace;
The smoke of hell, the monster called Pain:
Long shamed to be accursed in every place,
By them who of his rude resort complain;
Like crafty wretch, by time and travel taught,
His ugly evil in others' good to hide;
La...

He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires:
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires:
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

Yes, fairest Proof of Beauty's Pow'r,
Dear Idol of My panting Heart,
Nature points This my fatal Hour:
And I have liv'd; and We must part.

While now I take my last Adieu,
Heave Thou no Sigh, nor shed a Tear;
Lest yet my half-clos'd Eye may view
On Earth an Object worth it's Care.

From Jealousy's tormenting Strife
For ever be Thy Bosom free'd:
That nothing may disturb Thy Life,
Content I hasten to the Dead.

Yet when some better-fated Youth
Shall with his am'rous Parly move Thee;
Reflect One Moment on His Truth,
Who dying Thus, persists to love Thee.

Those hearts of ours -- how strange! how strange!
How they yearn to ramble and love to range
Down through the vales of the years long gone,
Up through the future that fast rolls on.

To-days are dull -- so they wend their ways
Back to their beautiful yesterdays;
The present is blank -- so they wing their flight
To future to-morrows where all seems bright.

Build them a bright and beautiful home,
They'll soon grow weary and want to roam;
Find them a spot without sorrow or pain,
They may stay a day, but they're off again.

Those hearts of ours -- how wild! how wild!
They're as hard to tame as an Indian child;
They're as restless as waves on the sounding sea,
Like the breeze and the bird are they fickle and free.

Those hearts of ours -- how l...

O to make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments! full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem!
O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a poem.

O the joy of my spirit! it is uncaged! it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time I will have thousands of globes, and all time.

O the engineer's joys!
To go with a locomotive!
To hear the hiss of steam the merry shriek the steam-whistle the laughing locomotive!
To push with resistless way, and speed off in the distance.

O the gleesome saunter over...

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep
Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise
In druid vapour and make the torches dim;
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him
Who met Fand walking among flaming dew
By a gray shore where the wind never blew,
And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;
And him who drove the gods out of their liss,
And till a hundred morns had flowered red,
Feasted and wept the barrows of his d...

The name the Gallic exile bore,
St. Malo! from thy ancient mart,
Became upon our Western shore
Greenleaf for Feuillevert.

A name to hear in soft accord
Of leaves by light winds overrun,
Or read, upon the greening sward
Of May, in shade and sun.

The name my infant ear first heard
Breathed softly with a mother’s kiss;
His mother’s own, no tenderer word
My father spake than this.

No child have I to bear it on;
Be thou its keeper; let it take
From gifts well used and duty done
New beauty for thy sake.

The fair ideals that outran
My halting footsteps seek and find
The flawless symmetry of man,
The poise of heart and mind.

Stand firmly where I felt the sway
Of every wing that fancy flew,
See clearly where I...

Now, by the blessed Paphian queen,
Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen;
By every name I cut on bark
Before my morning star grew dark;
By Hymen's torch, by Cupid's dart,
By all that thrills the beating heart;
The bright black eye, the melting blue, -
I cannot choose between the two.

I had a vision in my dreams; -
I saw a row of twenty beams;
From every beam a rope was hung,
In every rope a lover swung;
I asked the hue of every eye
That bade each luckless lover die;
Ten shadowy lips said, heavenly blue,
And ten accused the darker hue.

I asked a matron which she deemed
With fairest light of beauty beamed;
She answered, some thought both were fair, -
Give her blue eyes and golden hair.
I might have liked her judgment well,
B...

Dear, I am lonely, for the bay is still
    As any hill-girt lake; the long brown beach
    Lies bare and wet. As far as eye can reach
There is no motion. Even on the hill
    Where the breeze loves to wander I can see
    No stir of leaves, nor any waving tree.

There is a great red cliff that fronts my view
    A bare, unsightly thing; it angers me
    With its unswerving-grim monotony.
The mackerel weir, with branching boughs askew
    Stands like a fire-swept forest, while the sea
    Laps it, with soothing sighs, continually.

There are no tempests in this sheltered bay,
    The stillness frets me, and I long to be
    Where winds sweep strong and blow tempestuously,
To stand upon some hill-top far away
    And face a gathering gale, and let the...

Like winds that with the setting of the sun
    Draw to a quiet murmuring and cease,
So is her little struggle fought and done;
    And the brief fever and the pain
In a last sigh fade out and so release
The lately-breathing dust they may not hurt again.

Now all that Wilma was is made as naught:
    Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure;
The pretty air, the childish grace untaught,
    The innocent wiles,
    And all the sunny smiles,
The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure;
    The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high,
    The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye;
    Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined,
    And the gay impulse of her baby mind
    That none could tame,
That sent her spinning round,
    A spirit ...

List a tale a fairy sent us
Fresh from dear Mundi Juventus.
When Love and all the world was young,
And birds conversed as well as sung;
And men still faced this fair creation
With humour, heart, imagination.
Who come hither from Morocco
Every spring on the sirocco?
In russet she, and he in yellow,
Singing ever clear and mellow,
'Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet you, sweet you,
Did he beat you?    Did he beat you?'
Phyllopneustes wise folk call them,
But don't know what did befall them,
Why they ever thought of coming
All that way to hear gnats humming,
Why they built not nests but houses,
Like the bumble-bees and mousies.
Nor how little birds got wings,
Nor what 'tis the small cock sings -
How should they know - stupid fogies?
They da...

Oft with true sighs, oft with vncalled teares,
Now with slow words, now with dumbe eloquence,
I Stellas eyes assaid, inuade her eares;
But this, at last, is her sweet breath'd defence:
That who indeed in-felt affection beares,
So captiues to his Saint both soule and sence,
That, wholly hers, all selfenesse he forbeares,
Then his desires he learnes, his liues course thence.
Now, since her chast mind hates this loue in me,
With chastned mind I straight must shew that she
Shall quickly me from what she hates remoue.
O Doctor Cupid, thou for me reply;
Driu'n else to graunt, by Angels Sophistrie,
That I loue not without I leaue to loue.

Not like a daring, bold, aggressive boy,
    Is inspiration, eager to pursue,
But rather like a maiden, fond, yet coy,
    Who gives herself to him who best doth woo.

Once she may smile, or thrice, thy soul to fire,
    In passing by, but when she turns her face,
Thou must persist and seek her with desire,
    If thou wouldst win the favor of her grace.

And if, like some winged bird she cleaves the air,
    And leaves thee spent and stricken on the earth,
Still must thou strive to follow even there,
    That she may know thy valor and thy worth.

Then shall she come unveiling all her charms,
    Giving thee joy for pain, and smiles for tears;
Then shalt thou clasp her with possessing arms,
    The while she murmurs music in thine ears.

B...

Say, lovely youth, that dost my heart command,
Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand?
Must then her name the wretched writer prove,
To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?
Ask not the cause that I new numbers choose,
The Lute neglected, and the Lyric muse;
Love taught my tears in adder notes to flow,
And tun'd my heart to Elegies of woe,
I burn, I burn, as when thro' ripen'd corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne!
Phaon to Aetna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Aetna's fires!
No more my soul a charm in music finds,
Music has charms alone for peaceful minds.
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please,
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.
No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
Once the dear objects of m...

You are a Tulip seen to-day,
But, Dearest, of so short a stay,
That where you grew, scarce man can say.

You are a lovely July-flower;
Yet one rude wind, or ruffling shower,
Will force you hence, and in an hour.

You are a sparkling Rose i'th' bud,
Yet lost, ere that chaste flesh and blood
Can show where you or grew or stood.

You are a full-spread fair-set Vine,
And can with tendrils love entwine;
Yet dried, ere you distil your wine.

You are like Balm, enclosed well
In amber, or some crystal shell;
Yet lost ere you transfuse your smell.

You are a dainty Violet;
Yet wither'd, ere you can be set
Within the virgins coronet.

You are the Queen all flowers among;
But die you must, fair maid, ere long,
As he, the ...

        Some time, far hence, when Autumn sheds
            Her frost upon your hair,
        And you together sit at dusk,
            May I come to you there?
        And lightly will our hearts turn back
            To this, then distant, day
        When, while the world was clad in flowers,
            You two were wed in May.

        When we shall sit about your board
            Three old friends met again,
        Joy will be with us, but not much
            Of jest and laughter then;
        For Autumn's large content and calm,
            Like heaven's own smile, will bless
        The harvest of your happy lives
            With store of happiness.

        May you, who, flankt about with flowers,
            Will plight your faith ...

You say, to me-wards your affection's strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.
Slowly goes far: the mean is best: desire,
Grown violent, does either die or tire.

O Dearly loved!
And worthy of our love! No more
Thy aged form shall rise before
The bushed and waiting worshiper,
In meek obedience utterance giving
To words of truth, so fresh and living,
That, even to the inward sense,
They bore unquestioned evidence
Of an anointed Messenger!
Or, bowing down thy silver hair
In reverent awfulness of prayer,
The world, its time and sense, shut out
The brightness of Faith's holy trance
Gathered upon thy countenance,
As if each lingering cloud of doubt,
The cold, dark shadows resting here
In Time's unluminous atmosphere,
Were lifted by an angel's hand,
And through them on thy spiritual eye
Shone down the blessedness on high,
The glory of the Better Land!

The oak has fallen!
While, meet for no ...