Ever since Uncle John Henry been dead
All of the women are wearin' red.
Dis yere hammer, nine-pound hammer,
Kill mah partner, kill John Henry,
Kill him dead.

Evenings of beatitude,
even the book forgotten,
because the soul dissolves
lapped in quietude.

Evenings when every
sound lies sleeping.

Evenings when the least
seem anaesthetized,
all the garden flowers,
shadow more shadowy
and the old manor more deserted.

Evenings when the least
creak of furniture
were a profanation
of absurd cacophony
and impious intrusion.

Evenings when the house's
door is fast closed
and the soul's open.

Evenings when the quiet
vane on the steeple

A LADY in whom love is manifest —
That love which perfect honour doth adorn —
Hath ta'en the living heart out of thy breast,
Which in her keeping to new life is born:
For there by such sweet power it is possest
As even is felt of Indian unicorn:
And all its virtue now, with fierce unrest,
Unto thy soul makes difficult return.
For this thy lady is virtue's minister
In suchwise that no fault there is to show,
Save that God made her mortal on this ground.
And even herein His wisdom shall be found:

The evening sun was sinking down
On low green hills and clustered trees;
It was a scene as fair and lone
As ever felt the soothing breeze

That cools the grass when day is gone,
And gives the waves a brighter blue,
And makes the soft white clouds sail on--
Like spirits of ethereal dew

Which all the morn had hovered o'er
The azure flowers, where they were nursed,
And now return to Heaven once more,
Where their bright glories shone at first.

Evening is tawny on the old
Deep-windowed farm,
And the great elm-trees fold on fold
Are golden-warm.

And a fountain-basin drips its gold
'Mid gleaming lawns
Where mellow statue-bases hold
Their gilded fawns.

Through this my strong and new misaventure,
All now is lost to me
Which most was sweet in Love's supremacy.

So much of life is dead in its control,
That she, my pleasant lady of all grace,
Is gone out of the devastated soul:
I see her not, nor do I know her place;
Nor even enough of virtue with me stays
To understand, ah me!
The flower of her exceeding purity.

Because there comes — to kill that gentle thought
With saying that I shall not see her more —
This constant pain wherewith I am distraught,

Evening! A flight of pigeons in clear sky!
What wants there to allay love's fever now,
Goatherd! but that thy pipe should overflow,
While through the reeds the river murmurs by?
Here in the plane tree's shadow where we lie
Deep grows the grass and cool. Sit and allow
The wandering goat to scale yon rocky brow
And graze at will, deaf to the weanling's cry.

My flute — a simple thing, seven oaten reeds
Glued with a little wax — sings, plains, or pleads
In accents deep or shrill as I require;
Come! thou shalt learn Silenus' sacred art,

G UIDO , I wish that Lapo, thou, and I,
Could be by spells conveyed, as it were now,
Upon a barque, with all the winds that blow
Across all seas at our good will to hie.
So no mischance nor temper of the sky
Should mar our course with spite or cruel slip;
But we, observing old companionship,
To be companions still should long thereby.
And Lady Joan, and Lady Beatrice,
And her the thirtieth on my roll, with us
Should our good wizard set, o'er seas to move
And not to talk of anything but love:
And they three ever to be well at ease,

M ADRIGAL

I F thou hadst offered, friend, to blessed Mary
  A pious voluntary,
 As thus: ‘Fair rose, in holy garden set:’
Thou then hadst found a true similitude:
  Because all truth and good
 Are hers, who was the mansion and the gate
Wherein abode our High Salvation,
  Conceived in her, a Son,
 Even by the angel's greeting whom she met.
Be thou assured that if one cry to her,
  Confessing, ‘I did err,’
 For death she gives him life; for she is great.

Even though it's dark,
lights bewilder me.
I see a race of images,
colors fading and glowing,
lines becoming curves
that narrow and thicken
minute by minute
into a compass
where entire oceans contract,
and a stream widens