Red mouths of lads for love God made:
God mindeth ever poor wights' ease; —
Yet men His kindly Will gainsayed!

In seemly innocence arrayed
To be in sooth, a grace to please, —
Red lips of lads for love God made.

He weened that Love might there be stayed
That steals into the blood to tease; —
Yet men His kindly Will gainsayed.

Ah, pretty kisses they had prayed
Did not cold Pride their duty seize: —
Red mouths of lads for Love God made;
Yet men His kindly Will gainsayed!

I woke at dawn — and you were lying there
Close to my side, yet turned away from me.
So when sleep caught us, you lay wearily
Within my arms; the fragrance of your hair
Like a narcotic drugged me into rest;
Though I would fain have foresworn sleep for joy, —
That you, quintessent Youth, my darling Boy,
Should lie abandoned on my throbbing breast.
So as I yearned above you, the first ray
Of the glad morning quickened through the gloom,
You felt my eager kisses on your face,
Opened your eyes and smiled — And it was day!

Eyes that glass fear, though fear on furtive foot
Track thee, in slumber bound;
Ears that whist danger, though the wind sigh not,
Nor Echo list a sound;
Heart — oh, what hazard must thy wild life be,
With sapient Man for thy cold enemy!

Fleet Scatterbrains, thou hast thine hours of peace
In pastures April-green,
Where the shrill skylark's raptures never cease,
And the clear dew englobes the white moon's beam.
All happiness God gave thee, albeit thy foe
Roves Eden, as did his Satan, long ago.

Eyes so tristful, eyes so tristful,
Heart so full of care and cumber,
I was lapped in rest and slumber,
Ye have made me wakeful, wistful!
In this life of labor endless
Who shall comfort my distresses?
Querulous my soul and friendless
In its sorrow shuns caresses.
Ye have made me, ye have made me
Querulous of you, that care not,
Eyes so tristful, yet I dare not
Say to what ye have betrayed me.

Eyes so tristful, eyes so tristful,
Heart so full of care and cumber,
I was lapped in rest and slumber,

 The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

 Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

 Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving

The eye of the demon on Albion was turned;
And, viewing the happy, with envy he burned;
He snarled at the churches, the almshouse he cursed,
Till hate of their virtue his silence had burst:
"Why waves yonder harvest? why glitters yon tower?
"My hate they despise, and they scoff at my power.
"Then lend me assistance, ye elements dire,
"Attend at my call, air, earth, water, and fire.'
He spoke; and, lo! pregnant with flame and with pest,
The scorch of the blast his rough mandate confessed,
The flame of the typhus, the stifling damp,

Eye-flattering fortune, look thou never so fair,
Or never so pleasantly begin to smile
As though thou wouldst my ruin all repair;
During my life thou shalt me not beguile.
Trust shall I God, to enter in a while
His haven of heaven, sure and uniform;
Ever after thy calm, look I for a storm.

Exquisite stillness! What serenities
Of earth and air! How bright atop the wall
The stone-crop's fire, and beyond the precipice
How huge, how hushed, the primrose evenfall!
How softly, too, the white crane voyages
Yon honeyed height of warmth and silence, whence
He can look down on islet, lake and shore
And voiceless woods and pathless promontories,
Or, further gazing, view the magnificence
Of cloudlike mountains and of mountainous cloud
Or ghostly wrack below the horizon rim
Not even his eye has vantage to explore.

I sit on the lonely headland,
Where the sea-gulls come and go:
The sky is gray above me,
And the sea is gray below.

There is no fisherman's pinnace
Homeward or outward bound;
I see no living creature
In the world's deserted round.

I pine for something human,
Man, woman, young or old,—
Something to meet and welcome,
Something to clasp and hold.

I have a mouth for kisses,
But there's no one to give or take,
I have a heart in my bosom
Beating for nobody's sake.

O warmth of love that is wasted!

The dusky sky fades into blue
And blue waters bind us
The stars are glimmering faint and few,
The night is left behind us!
Turn not where sinks the sullen dark
Before the signs of warning,
But crowd the canvas on our bark
And sail to meet the morning.
Rejoice! rejoice! the hues that fill
The orient, flush and lighten
And over the blue Ionian hill
The Dawn begins to brighten!

We leave the Night, that weighed so long
Upon the soul's endeavor,
For Morning, on these hills of Song,
Has made her home forever.