English

Fair am I, mortals, as a stone-carved dream,
And all men wound themselves against my breast,
The poet's last desire, the loveliest.
Voiceless, eternal as the world I seem.
In the blue air, strange sphinx, I brood supreme
With heart of snow whiter than swan's white crest,
No movement mars the plastic line—I rest
With lips untaught to laugh or eyes to stream.

Singers who see, in trancèd interludes,
My splendour set with all superb design,
Consume their days, in toilful ecstasy.
To these revealed, the starry amplitudes

Tall unpopular men,
Slim proud women who move
As women walked in the islands when
Temples were built to Love,
I sing to you. With you
Beauty at best can live,
Beauty that dwells with the rare and few,
Cold and imperative.
He who had Cæsar's ear
Sang to the lonely and strong.
Virgil made an austere
Venus Muse of his song.

In emptiest furthest heaven where no stars are,
Perhaps some planet of our master sun
Still rolls an unguessed orbit round its star,
Unthought, unseen, unknown of anyone.
Roving dead space according to its law,
Casting our light on burnt-out suns and blind,
Singing in the frozen void its word of awe,
One wandering thought in all that idiot mind.
And, in some span of many a thousand year,
Passing through heaven its influence may arouse
Beauty unguessed in those who habit here,
And men may rise with glory on their brows

Fair star, new-risen to our wondering eyes
With brighter glory from thy long eclipse!
Poet, imprisoned in dead centuries!
Some god unlocks thy music now, and strips
The seal of envious silence from thy lips;
And we are fain to hear thy wakening melodies.

Thou comest from the darkness of the tomb
To sing once more the happy olden time,—
Victor and hero, youth and youth's fair bloom,
The joy of life in manhood's golden prime;
And I, of alien tongue and harsher clime,
Listen, and lose awhile life's endless fret and fume.

When I remember Jiangnan,
What I remember next are the palaces of Wu
A cup of Wu wine, leaves of spring bamboo,
A pair of dancing Wu beauties, wine-flushed hibiscus faces
When can I meet them again?

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot,
Strange, and sad, and tall,
Stood all alone at dead of night
Before a lighted hall.

And the wold was white with snow,
And his foot-marks black and damp,
And the ghost of the silvern Moon arose,
Holding her yellow lamp.

And the icicles were on the eaves,
And the walls were deep with white,
And the shadows of the guests within
Pass'd on the window light.

The shadows of the wedding guests
Did strangely come and go,
And the body of Judas Iscariot

Doth yonder Northern storm its lightnings dart
To wither e'en the minstrel's garland green?
Hath Poetry become a coward's art,
And only sword and lance fresh honours glean?
Must poets, clothed with shame, far hence depart
While warlike hosts advance their weapons keen?
May not the harper, as i' the olden tide,
E'en through the hostile camp, full welcome, stride?
Must Poetry in wood and cave abide
Till War disturbs no more the nations' rest?
Till all volcanic fires have waned and died

The silver moon shines, and the diamond stars twinkle,
The night soars o'er land and o'er main;
The Book of Creation before me is open—
I read it—and read it again.

I read and repeat the old, marvellous stories—
A voice I hear answering me:
“My people shall be as the stars of the heaven,
As sand on the shore of the sea!”

Oh, heavenly Father, not one of thy sayings
Has ever proved vain or untrue;
Thy will on the earth, as thy will in the heaven
Must come, when its season is due.

Pass where the winds pause before they cross,
pass where the clouds pause before they cross,
the pass of Changsong ridge
where wild-born falcons,
tamed falcons,
peregrine falcons,
and yearling falcons pause before they cross—
If they said my love were over the pass,
I would cross it without a pause.

The lytle droppes off raine that fall from hye
in tyme do pearce the hardest marble stone
the dyamond whose force no force can trye
ys crased and frett with Lyons blode alone
The flames kept in, by violence at laste
doo ryve the brasse tyll they some vent have founde
the sturdye oake with wrathfull northern blaste
ys overthrowne and layde uppon the grownde
But I (o cursede love) that alweis day and night
from oute myne Eyes such store off dropps distill
and in my harte containe such flamynge lyght