O gift of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where though a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms<...

Air-"Come live with me and be my love."


Come wed with me and we will write,
My Blue of Blues, from morn till night.
Chased from our classic souls shall be
All thoughts of vulgar progeny;
And thou shalt walk through smiling rows
Of chubby duodecimos,
While I, to match thy products nearly,
Shall lie-in of a quarto yearly.
'Tis true, even books entail some trouble;
But live productions give one double.

Correcting children is such bother,--
While printers' devils correct the other.
Just think, my own Malthusian dear,
How much more decent 'tis to hear
From male or female--as it may be--
"How is your book?" than "How's your baby?"
And whereas physic and wet nurses
Do much exhaust paternal purses,
Our books if ric...

("I believe ... in the resurrection of the body.")

How young you are, for such lone majesty

Of silence and repose!
That lip was vowed to laughter and that eye,

That white cheek to the rose!

What age your spirit hath, who thinks to say?

If young, or young no more;
But all for merriment, oh, all for play.

That new, sweet shape it wore!

So, in His time, to whom all time is now.

From flower and wind and steep.
Shall He not summon you to keep your vow,

Since He hath made you sleep?

Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun,
Into the free companionship of air;
Perhaps with sunsets when the day is done,
All's one to me -- I do not greatly care;
So long as there are brown hills -- and a tree
Like a mad prophet in a land of dearth --
And I can lie and hear eternally
The vast monotonous breathing of the earth.

I have known hours, slow and golden-glowing,
Lovely with laughter and suffused with light,
O Lord, in such a time appoint my going,
When the hands clench, and the cold face grows white,
And the spark dies within the feeble brain,
Spilling its star-dust back to dust again.

'Oh happy happy land!
Angels like rushes stand
    About the wells of light.' -
    'Alas, I have not eyes for this fair sight:
Hold fast my hand.' -

'As in a soft wind, they
Bend all one blessed way,
    Each bowed in his own glory, star with star.' -
    'I cannot see so far,
    Here shadows are.' -

'White-winged the cherubim,
Yet whiter seraphim,
    Glow white with intense fire of love.' -
'Mine eyes are dim:
    I look in vain above,
And miss their hymn.' -

'Angels, Archangels cry
One to other ceaselessly
    (I hear them sing)
    One "Holy, Holy, Holy" to their King.' -
'I do not hear them, I.' -

'At one side Paradise
    Is curtained from the rest,
Made green for wearied eyes;
    Much so...

"Come, sit thee by my side once more,
    'Tis long since thus we' met;
And though our dream of love is o'er,
    Its sweetness lingers yet.
Its transient day has long been past,
    Its flame has ceased to burn, -
But Memory holds its spirit fast,
    Safe in her sacred urn.

"I will not chide thy wanderings,
    Nor ask why thou couldst flee
A heart whose deep affection's springs
    Poured forth such love for thee!
We may not curb the restless mind,
    Nor teach the wayward heart
To love against its will, nor bind
    It with the chains of art.

"I would but tell thee how, in tears
    And bitterness, my soul
Has yearned with dreams, through long, long, years,
    Which it could not control.
And how the thought that clingeth t...

Remain, ah not in youth alone!
Tho' youth, where you are, long will stay,
But when my summer days are gone,
And my autumnal haste away.
'Can I be always by your side?'
No; but the hours you can, you must,
Nor rise at Death's approaching stride,
Nor go when dust is gone to dust.

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.

I gave myself to him,
And took himself for pay.
The solemn contract of a life
Was ratified this way.

The wealth might disappoint,
Myself a poorer prove
Than this great purchaser suspect,
The daily own of Love

Depreciate the vision;
But, till the merchant buy,
Still fable, in the isles of spice,
The subtle cargoes lie.

At least, 't is mutual risk, --
Some found it mutual gain;
Sweet debt of Life, -- each night to owe,
Insolvent, every noon.

There is a world Life dreams of, long since lost:
Invisible save only to the heart:
That spreads its cloudy islands, without chart,
Above the Earth,'mid oceans none has crossed:
Far Faerylands, that have become a part
Of mortal longings; that, through difficult art,
Man strives to realize to the uttermost.
Could we attain that Land of Faërie
Here in the flesh, what starry certitudes
Of loveliness were ours! what mastery
Of beauty and the dream that still eludes!
What clearer vision! Ours were then the key
To Mystery, that Nature jealously
Locks in her heart of hearts among the woods.

What do I find right at the center of my interpersonal
relationships: a slightly dispersed but indisputably
tinctured core of brutality: go to the hospital


the question is not whether your life is at stake
but whether you can pay the bill, guaranteeing it on
admission (or no admission) and proving it (or not getting


out) on release (if any): this bit of realism
clutches our floating values underneath like a bracket
under a bouquet: if someone pauses to


congratulate me on some slight nothing, I see the
quiver of a curse undermine his lip: he
tries to make a better world even while it crumbles in


on him and us (a brutality): when I give my body to another
(or take another’s) I sometimes fear more
body being taken than was of...

    Go set the table, Mary, an' let the cloth be white!
    The hungry city children are comin' here to-night;
    The children from the city, with features pinched an' spare,
    Are comin' here to get a breath of God's untainted air.

    They come from out the dungeons where they with want were chained;
    From places dark an' dismal, by tears of sorrow stained;
    From where a thousand shadows are murdering all the light:
    Set well the table, Mary dear, an' let the cloth be white!



    They ha' not seen the daisies made for the heart's behoof;
    They never heard the rain-drops upon a cottage roof;
    They do not...

A farewell for a Gentlewoman, vertuous and noble

False world, good-night, since thou hast brought
That houre upon my morne of age,
Hence-forth I quit thee from my thought,
My part is ended on thy stage.
Doe not once hope, that thou canst tempt
A spirit so resolv'd to tread
Upon thy throat, and live exempt
From all the nets that thou canst spread.
I know thy formes are studied arts,
Thy subtill wayes, be narrow straits;
Thy curtesie but sudden starts,
And what thou call'st thy gifts are baits.
I know too, though thou strut, and paint,
Yet art thou both shrunke up, and old;
That onely fooles make thee a saint,
And all thy good is to be sold.
I know thou whole art but a shop
Of toyes, and trifles, traps, and snares,
To take the weake, or make...

I dreamed within a dream the sun was gold;
And as I walked beneath this golden sun,
The world was like a mighty play-room old,
Made for our pleasure since it was begun.

But when I waked I found the sun was air,
The world was air, and all things only seemed,
Except the thoughts we grow by; for in prayer
We change to spirits such as God has dreamed.

Day by day, with startling fleetness,
    Life speeds away;
Love, alone, can glean its sweetness,
    Love while you may.
While the soul is strong and fearless,
While the eye is bright and tearless,
Ere the heart is chilled and cheerless -
    Love while you may.

Life may pass, but love, undying,
    Dreads no decay;
Even from the grave replying,
    "Love while you may."
Love's the fruit, as life's the flower;
Love is heaven's rarest dower;
Love gives love its quick'ning power -
    Love while you may.

I

O fairest flower no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken Primrose fading timelesslie,
Summers chief honour if thou hadst outlasted
Bleak winters force that made thy blossome drie;
For he being amorous on that lovely die
That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss
But kill'd alas, and then bewayl'd his fatal bliss.

II

For since grim Aquilo his charioter
By boistrous rape th' Athenian damsel got,
He thought it toucht his Deitie full neer,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away th' infamous blot,
Of long-uncoupled bed, and childless eld,
Which 'mongst the wanton gods a foul reproach was held.

III

So mounting up in ycie-pearled carr,
Through middle empire of the freezing aire
He wanderd long,...

I cannot quite recall
When first he came,
So reticent and tall,
With his eyes of flame.

The neighbors used to say
(They know so much!)
He looked to them half way
Spanish or Dutch.

Outlandish certainly
He is--and queer!
He has been lodged with me
This thirty year;

All the while (it seems absurd!)
We hardly have
Exchanged a single word.
Mum as the grave!

Minds only his own affairs,
Goes out and in,
And keeps himself upstairs
With his violin.

Mum did I say? And yet
That talking smile
You never can forget,
Is all the while

Full of such sweet reproofs
The darkest day,
Like morning on the roofs
In flush of May.

Like autumn on the hills;
At four o'clock
The...

    "Life's day is too brief," he said at dawn,
    "I would it were ten times longer,
    For great tasks wait for me further on."
    At noonday the wish was stronger.

    His place was in the thick of the strife,
    And hopes were nearing completeness,
    While one was crowning the joys of life
    With love's own wonderful sweetness.

    "Life's day is too brief for all it contains,
    The triumphs, the fighting, the proving,
    The hopes and desires, the joys and the pains -
    Too brief for the hating and loving."

            *        *        *        *        *

    To-night he sits in the shadows gray,
    While heavily sorrow presses.
    O the long, long day! O the weary day,
    With its failures and successes!