He tasted love with half his mind,Nor ever drank the inviolate springWhere nighest heaven, who first could flingThis bitter seed among mankind; That could the dead, whose dying eyesWere closed with wail, resume their life,They would but find in child and wifeAn iron welcome when they rise: ‘Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine,To pledge […]

  Witch-elms that counterchange the floorOf this flat lawn with dusk and bright;And thou, with all thy breadth and heightOf foliage, towering sycamore; How often, hither wandering down,My Arthur found your shadows fair,And shook to all the liberal airThe dust and din and steam of town: He brought an eye for all he saw;He mixt […]

Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet,Rings Eden thro’ the budded quicks,O tell me where the senses mix,O tell me where the passions meet, Whence radiate: fierce extremes employThy spirits in the darkening leaf,And in the midmost heart of griefThy passion clasps a secret joy: And I—my harp would prelude woe—I cannot all command the strings;The […]

I past beside the reverend wallsIn which of old I wore the gown;I roved at random thro’ the town,And saw the tumult of the halls; And heard once more in college fanesThe storm their high-built organs make,And thunder-music, rolling, shakeThe prophet blazon’d on the panes; And caught once more the distant shout,The measured pulse of […]

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,That rollest from the gorgeous gloomOf evening over brake and bloomAnd meadow, slowly breathing bare The round of space, and rapt belowThro’ all the dewy-tassell’d wood,And shadowing down the horned floodIn ripples, fan my brows and blow The fever from my cheek, and sighThe full new life that feeds thy breathThroughout […]

This truth came borne with bier and pall,I felt it, when I sorrow’d most,‘Tis better to have loved and lost,Than never to have loved at all— O true in word, and tried in deed,Demanding, so to bring reliefTo this which is our common grief,What kind of life is that I lead; And whether trust in […]

When I contemplate all aloneThe life that had been thine below,And fix my thoughts on all the glowTo which thy crescent would have grown; I see thee sitting crown’d with good,A central warmth diffusing blissIn glance and smile, and clasp and kiss,On all the branches of thy blood; Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine;For […]

Dip down upon the northern shore,O sweet new-year delaying long;Thou doest expectant nature wrong;Delaying long, delay no more. What stays thee from the clouded noons,Thy sweetness from its proper place?Can trouble live with April days,Or sadness in the summer moons? Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,The little speedwell’s darling blue,Deep tulips dash’d with fiery dew,Laburnums, […]

  I wage not any feud with DeathFor changes wrought on form and face;No lower life that earth’s embraceMay breed with him, can fright my faith. Eternal process moving on,From state to state the spirit walks;And these are but the shatter’d stalks,Or ruin’d chrysalis of one. Nor blame I Death, because he bareThe use of […]

Could I have said while he was here,`My love shall now no further range;There cannot come a mellower change,For now is love mature in ear’? Love, then, had hope of richer store:What end is here to my complaint?This haunting whisper makes me faint,‘More years had made me love thee more.’ But Death returns an answer […]