Cloth socks, straw sandals, robe of coarse cloth,
wine jug, book of poems—and a boy trailing behind!
White-haired, I laugh at myself: I once served at court!
Walking along, who pities me, this old Han-lin official!
I'm happy to hear that my five acres of rice
have all ripened now;
but it's too bad the chrysanthemums are late for the Double Ninth.
Pine tree forests, valley of bamboo—a place to enjoy myself:
and from time to time, a mountain monk will ask me for a little

Closest to men, thou pitying Son of man,
And thrilled from crown to foot with fellowship,
Yet most apart and strange and lonely as God—
Dwell in my heart, remote and intimate One!
Brother of all the world, I come to Thee!

Gentle as she who nursed Thee at her breast
(Yet what a lash of lightnings once thy tongue
To scourge the hypocrite and Pharisee!)—
Nerve Thou mine arm, O meek, O mighty One!
Champion of all who fail, I fly to Thee!

O Man of Sorrows with the wounded hands—
For chaplet, for throne, a pagan cross;

Close up the casement, draw the blind,
Shut out that stealing moon,
She wears too much the guise she wore
Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
On a white stone were hewn.

Step not forth on the dew-dashed lawn
To view the Lady's Chair,
Immense Orion's glittering form,

Close to the sod
There can be seen
A thought of God
In white and green.
Unmarred, unsoiled,
It cleft the clay;
Serene, unspoiled,
It views the day.

It is so holy
And yet so lowly,
Would you enjoy
Its grace and dower
And not destroy
The living flower?
Then you must, please,
Fall on your knees.

Close the dim eyes, for expression hath left them;
Arrange the limp hands, ere stiffness ensue;
Cover her o'er, with a cloth of pure whiteness;
Reverence her clay, it is all we can do.

Never again shall those calm lips be parted,
Displaying the pearl in the sunshine of mirth;
Never those dim eyes in sympathy kindle,
Nature hath claimed her dust for the earth.

Ever her image is bright in our vision,
Recalling so vividly, days that are fled;
Days, when her light step, her smile, and her beauty,

Close on the edge of a midsummer dawn
In troubled dreams I went from land to land,
Each seven-colored like the rainbow's are,
Regions where never fancy's foot had trod
Till then; yet all the strangeness seemed not strange,
At which I wondered, reasoning in my dream
With two-fold sense, well knowing that I slept.
At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth,
And somewhere by the seashore was a grave,
A woman's grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers;
And near it stood an ancient holy man
That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not

Close now thine eyes, and rest secure;
Thy Soule is safe enough; thy Body sure;
He that loves thee, he that keepes
And guards thee, never slumbers, never sleepes.
The smiling Conscience in a sleeping breast
Has only peace, has only rest:
The musicke and the mirth of Kings,
Are all but very Discords, when she sings:
Then close thine Eyes and rest secure;
No Sleepe so sweet as thine, no rest so sure.

Close keep your lips, if that you meane
To be accounted inside cleane:
For if you cleave them, we shall see
There in your teeth much Leprosie.

Cloe, blooming, sweet as May ,
We must tempt Mamma away;
Still the jealous Dame destroys
All our Schemes of future Joys:
All the Projects we have try'd,
Vainly yet have been apply'd;
At my Bait she now must bite ,
If I guess her Temper right:
She shall have her Lover too;
Trust me, Cloi , this will do.

The clock within us, speaking time
By heart-beat seconds and by mental years,
Is garrulous in any gear,
So life at once seems short and endless.
Who is not glad to find the hour later than he thought?
For so he has killed, not time
But the inward timing of the ceaseless rote.
Its beat, which makes him count the cost
Of that creation which, loving, he cannot resist,
Hurries him on to end whatever was begun —
The child, to be grown, the poem, to be done.

But in each other's arms,
Or on the tide of prayer, when we