Sweetly (my Dearest) I left thee asleep
Which Silent parting made my heart to weep,
Faine would I wake her, but Love did Reply
O wake her not, So sweetly let her Lye.
But must I goe, O must I Leave her So,
So ill at Ease: involv'd in Slumbering wo
Must I goe hence: and thus my Love desert
Unknown to Her, O must I now Depart;
Thus was I hurried with such thoughts as these,
Yet loath to Rob the of thy present Ease,
Or rather senceless payn: farewell thought I,
My Joy my Deare in whom I live or Dye
Farewell Content, farewell fare Beauty's light

Crescent moon, again you 're filling
All the sable heavens with light,
Urging the sad poet on to sing,
Spilling
Beams like silver fishes bright
Till they flood the depths of every spring.
Night is drowned in bridal splendor.
Like a charmèd bird the tender
Heart bounds high, 'twixt grief and glee.
Garden sphinxes leer at me.

Blood you sway and billows roaring,
Breasts of women you control,
And you sting the sleeper in his trance,
Pouring
Melancholy on the soul.
In your beams the fool is fain to dance,
In your spark-rain serpents wallow.

How many may be hurrying through
The drizzle on the Bridge of Seta?

Adore we the Lord
and His wonderful works:
great Heaven bright with angels,
Earth's sea white with waves.

THAT light, that sight, that thought,
Which in my soul at first He wrought,
Is sure the only act to which I may
Assent to-day:
The mirror of an endless life,
The shadow of a virgin wife,
A spiritual world standing within,
An Universe enclosed in skin,
My power exerted, or my perfect Being,
If not enjoying, yet an act of seeing.
My bliss
Consists in this,
My duty too
In this I view.
It is a fountain or a spring,
Refreshing me in everything.
From whence those living streams I do derive,
By which my thirsty soul is kept alive.

When Winter scourged the meadow and the hill
And in the withered leafage worked his will,
The water shrank, and shuddered, and stood still,—
Then built himself a magic house of glass,
Irised with memories of flowers and grass,
Wherein to sit and watch the fury pass.

“Harper! Strike thy harp again!
Strike it loud and boldly,
Sing a song of the ice-bound North
Where the rushing winds blow coldly.
Yet 'tis long until the morn,
Sing! and look not so forlorn.”

Low the harper bent his head,
O'er the strings his fingers sped;
First but slowly, first but low
Struck the notes upon the ear,
Swelling louder—growing near—
Echoing there, and echoing here,
Through the hall they go.

Warbling to himself he lingered,
And the strings he idly fingered,
Lost in thoughts of other years.

I dreamt that I was running
With wings upon my shoulders;
And that Eros, having lead-weights
On his pretty little ankles,
Ran after me and caught me.
What might this dream betoken?
As for me, I think that having
In many loves been tangled,
And from all escaped in safety,
By this new one I am fettered.

In this same spot seven years ago the love-god found me
And with a wayward wreath of trivial sweet flowers crowned me,—
Seven wild long years ago.
In this same spot to-day a tender new love finds me
And here again the sweet and wayward love-god binds me
(Though love's bonds melt like snow!)

Ah! ever so it is. For ever and for ever
The love-god haunts our steps, and yet his chains are never
Abiding and supreme.
Love's breath is as the breath of summer's countless roses:
Yet when the sweet long month of sunlit gardens closes
All rose-scent is a dream.

All morning I believe
In my own song;
But all afternoon, my faith
Is not so strong,—

Yet, every evening,
Hope comes back again…
Read, Oracle, to me,
The riddle plain!

The thrush sings at matins,
And at vespers, clear,
But not through the broad day,
Any time of year.