English

What I dreamed would be so strange to know—
Familiar;
As night or noon.

What I thought would be such fearsome giving—
Simple;
Like lifting a cup for a child to drink.

I imagined it would be terrible to take;
And I received it merrily;
Expectation saved up through years and long years
Slipped by in a breath.

It is so still in the house.
There is a calm in the house;
The snowstorm wails out there,
And the dogs are rolled up with snouts under the tail.
My little boy is sleeping on the ledge,
On his back he lies, breathing through his open mouth.
His little stomach is bulging round--
Is it strange if I start to cry with joy?

Once when you walked through the spring
Birds had a swifter note,
And every flowered thing
Seemed quivering at your throat.

What is your April now
But time when leaves are new,
Spurting from every bough
With sunlight showing through?

And yet this much is good:
Knowing their powdery death
All leaves must serve your mood,
And none can hurt your breath.

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

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,

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,

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,