Spring in War Time And Fragoletta weep and wring her little
I feel the Spring far off, far off, hands?
The faint far scent of bud and leaf--
New singing now the singer hears
Oh how can Spring take heart to come To lyre and lute and harp;
To a world in grief, Catullus waits to welcome him,
Deep grief? And thro' the twilight sweet and dim,
Sappho's forgotten songs are falling on
The sun turns north, the days grow his ears.
long,
Later the evening star grows bright-- <><><><>
How can the daylight linger on
For men to fight, Places
Still fight? PLACES I love come back to me like
music,
The grass is waking in the ground, Hush me and heal me when I am very
Soon it will rise and blow in waves-- tired;
How can it have the heart to sway I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
Over the graves, In a flare of crimson by the frost newly
New graves? fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the
Under the boughs where lovers walked valley
The apple-blooms will shed their As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
breath-- I know a bright world of snowy hills at
But what of all the lovers now Boonton,
Parted by death, A blue and white dazzling light on
Gray Death? everything one sees,
The ice-covered branches of the
hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp
<><><><> thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle
on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue
On the Death of Swinburne
shadows from the trees.
He trod the earth but yesterday, Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
And now he treads the stars. The hills across from Cromwell grow
He left us in the April time dreamy and far;
He praised so often in his rhyme, A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol
He left the singing and the lyre and went In the heart of the hollow where the
his way. dark pools are;
The primrose has opened her pale yellow
He drew new music from our tongue,
A music subtly wrought, flowers
And moulded words to his desire, And heaven is lighting star after star.
As wind doth mould a wave of fire; Places I love come back to me like music
From strangely fashioned harps slow —
golden tones he wrung. Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz
drowsily;
I think the singing understands
In the ship's deep churning the eerie
That he who sang is still,
And Iseult cries that he is dead, -- phosphorescence
Does not Dolores bow her head Is like the souls of people who were
drowned at sea, Tired with summer.
And I can hear a man's voice, speaking,
hushed, insistent, Let me remember you, voices of little
insects,
At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are
to me. tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter
<><><><>
be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.
Spring Night
Over my soul murmur your mute
The park is filled with night and fog, benediction,
The veils are drawn about the world, While I gaze, O fields that rest after
The drowsy lights along the paths harvest,
Are dim and pearled. As those who part look long in the eyes
they lean to,
Gold and gleaming the empty streets, Lest they forget them.
gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords, <><><><>
Glimmer and shake.
Oh, is it not enought to be
Embers
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I I said, "My youth is gone
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky. Like a fire beaten out by the rain,
O, Beauty are you not enough? That will never sway and sing
Why am I crying after love, Or play with the wind again."
With youth, a singing voice and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise? I said, "It is no great sorrow
Why have I put off my pride, That quenched my youth in me,
Why am I unsatisfied,-- But only little sorrows
I for whom the pensive night Beating ceaselessly."
Binds her cloudy hair with light,--
I, for whom all beauty burns I thought my youth was gone,
Like incense in a million urns? But you returned --
O, Beauty, are you not enough? Like a flame at the call of the wind
Why am I crying after love? It leaped and burned;
<><><><> Threw off its ashen cloak,
And gowned anew
Gave itself like a bride
September Midnight Once more to you.
Lyric night of the lingering Indian
Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full
of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant
of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high
in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding
the silence
Under a moon waning and worn,
broken,
