Morning Song

A diamond of a morning
    Waked me an hour too soon;
Dawn had taken in the stars
    And left the faint white moon.

O white moon, you are lonely,
    It is the same with me,
But we have the world to roam over,
    Only the lonely are free.

Those Who Love

Those who love the most
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant garden of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile, inconsequential things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in sombre pride,
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

A New Moon

Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
Beaten by body, bruised my soul,
Left me nothing lovely or whole -
Yet I have wrested a gift from you,
Day that dies in dusky blue:

For suddenly over the factories
I saw a moon in the cloudy seas -
A wisp of beauty all alone
   In a world as hard and gray as stone -
Oh who could be bitter and want to die
When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?

A Song For Colin

I sang a song at dusking time
    Beneath the evening star,
And Terence left his latest rhyme
    To answer from afar.

Pierrot laid down his lute to weep,
    And sighed, "She sings for me,"
But Colin slept a careless sleep
    Beneath an apple tree.

Stars

Alone in the night
    On a dark hill
With pines around me
    Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars
    Over my head
White and topaz
    And misty red;

Myriads with beating
    Hearts of fire
The aeons
    Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven
    Like a great hill
I watch them marching
    Stately and still.

And I know that I
    Am honored to be
Witness
    Of so much majesty.

Madeira From The Sea

Out of the delicate dream of the distance an emerald emerges
Veiled in the violet folds of the air of the sea;
Softly the dream grows awakening - shimmering white of a city,
Splashes of crimson, the gay bougainvillea, the palms.
High in the infinite blue of its heaven a quiet cloud lingers,
Lost and forgotten by winds that have fallen asleep,
Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portugese song in a garden.

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Dusk

A city's street, a roaring, blackened stream,
    Walled in by granite, through whose thousand eyes
A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,
    And over all the pale, untroubled skies.

The Look

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
    Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
    And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
    Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
    Haunts me night and day.

The Faery Forest

The faery forest glimmered
    Beneath an ivory moon,
The silver grasses shimmered
    Against a faery tune.

Beneath the silken silence
    The crystal branches slept,
And dreaming through the dew-fall
    The cold, white blossoms wept.

The Long Hill

I must have passed the crest a while ago
    And now I am going down —
Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know,
    But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.

All the morning I thought how proud I should be
    To stand there straight as a queen,
Wrapped in the wind and the sun with the world under me —
    But the air was dull, there was little I could have seen.

It was nearly level along the beaten track
    And the brambles caught in my gown —
But it's no use to think of turning back,
    The rest of the way will be only going down.

Moon's Ending

Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,
       Into the dawn clouds flying,
How good to go, light into light, and still
       Giving light, dying.

Let It Be Forgotten

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
TIme is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.

Spring Night

The park is filled with night and fog,
    The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
    Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
    Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
    Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?

Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied, -
I, for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light, -
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?

Faults

They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
I knew them all so well before, -
Oh, they were blind, too blind to see
Your faults had made me love you more.

Night Song At Amalfi

I asked the heaven of stars
    What I should give my love —
It answered me with silence,
    Silence above.

I asked the darkened sea
    Down where the fisherman go —
It answered me with silence,
    Silence below.

Oh, I could give him weeping,
    Or I could give him song —
But how can I give silence
    My whole life long?