All poems, page 5

wade through black jade.

An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly,

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;

You little sparrows left without A mother, come and play with me.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

One walketh in Renunciation's way; Another fain would pay

I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running in front of me. Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking game.

This lonely hill to me was ever dear, This hedge, which shuts from view so large a part

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;

It is portentous, and a thing of state That here at midnight, in our little town,

Across sea-meadows measureless I go, My wagon sinking under grass so tall

O, my luve's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June:

I have learnt that all men live not by care for themselves but by love. It was not given to the mother to know what her children needed for their life.

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole,

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high,

I ask but right, let her that caught me late, Either love, or cause that I may never hate;

Had we but World enough, and Time, This coyness Lady were no crime.

Now that I know How passion warms little

In countless pictures I behold thee, O Mary, lovelily expressed,

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs

Alas! there cometh the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man—and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whizz! I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still chaos in you.

Oh! distant past, made up of slow But ever accumulating days!

If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though;

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.

Outside the sky is light with stars; There's a hollow roaring from the sea.

Be silent, hidden, and conceal Whate'er you dream, whate'er you feel.

My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west— How can I find savour in food? How shall it be sweet to me?

The Lady Moon is my lover, My friends are the oceans four,

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark,

Whirl up, sea— Whirl your pointed pines,

Pythoness body—arching Over the night like an ecstasy—

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

O servant, where dost thou seek Me? Lo! I am beside thee.

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,

I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight;

The year's at the spring And day's at the morn;

Hanging from the beam, Slowly swaying (such the law),

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light,

Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land;

Happy the moment when we are seated in the palace, thou and I, With two forms and with two figures but with one soul, thou and I.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Within a vale, each infant year, When earliest larks first carol free,

I went to the dances at Chandlerville, And played snap-out at Winchester.