The sumachs, noiseless, by the still, hot road
Stand up as guards, with blood-red soldier plumes.
How light the hill-blue, clear of cloudy glooms!
How lone the land, with summer overflowed!
Dry crickets grate; a bee takes larger load
With low, pleased muttering, where the wild-rose blooms;
The bovine breath of sleeping fields perfumes
Warm air, with drifts of wayside spicery sowed.
Good earth, how glad a thing it is to be
Part of this full, yet placid life of thine,
Close to thy heart as humblest creatures press!

Now God preserve, as you well do deserve,
Your majesties all two there;
Your highness small, with my good lords all,
And ladies, how do you do there?

Give me leave to ask, for I bring you a masque
From little, little, little London;
Which say the king likes, I have passed the pikes,
If not, old Christmas is undone.

Our dance's freight is a matter of eight,
And two, the which are wenches:
In all they be ten, four cocks to a hen,
And will swim to the tune like tenches.

Each hath his knight for to carry his light,

A Girl,
Her soul a deep-wave pearl
Dim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;
A face flowered for heart's ease,
A brow's grace soft as seas
Seen through faint forest-trees:
A mouth, the lips apart,
Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the breeze
From her tempestuous heart.
Such: and our souls so knit,
I leave a page half-writ—
The work begun
Will be to heaven's conception done,
If she come to it.

not a single leaf—
even the moon does not lodge
in this willow tree

Speaking and speaking again words like silver bubbles,
we walk at dusk through rain.

The sky has grown black with a tinge of red from the street-lamps;
triangular pools form in the square cracks of the pavement,
noisy with rain.

Send home my long strayd eyes to mee,
Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee;
Yet since there they have learn'd such ill,
Such forc'd fashions,
And false passions,
That they be
Made by thee
Fit for no good sight, keep them still.

Send home my harmlesse heart againe,
Which no unworthy thought could staine;
But if it be taught by thine
To make jestings
Of protestings,
And crosse both
Word and oath,
Keepe it, for then 'tis none of mine.

Yet send me back my heart and eyes,
That I may know, and see thy lyes,

Nights of mine, you good sisters of the imprisoned,
The stillness becomes filled with your trembling sounds
Lying on the hard bench I listen attentively—
I hear your heart-throbs, brothers, you
From here and there … from there and here …
Imprisoned in the jails of all continents,
In Atlanta and in Memphis, in Calumet and Barcelona, in Calcutta—and in Mayland—
You, brothers, we in the struggle and rebellion, in strikes and revolts—
Accept my greeting, you brothers, we.

They wish to forbid you the world and the world is your wishing!

Six months to six years added he remained
Upon this sinful earth, by sin unstained:
O blessèd Lord! whose mercy then removed
A Child whom every eye that looked on loved;
Support us, teach us calmly to resign
What we possessed, and now is wholly thine!

Poor jealous Procris in the Cretan wood,
Slain by the very hand of love at last
This way was best! the cordial bath of blood,
The long love-sickness past.

The brown fauns gather round with piteous cries;
They mourn her beauty, guess not at her woe;
They find no Eos graven on those eyes
Whence tears no longer flow.

Her griefs, her frailties from the flowery turf
Exhaled, are as the dews of yesterday;
The grim ship hurrying through the Phocian surf,
The exile on her way,

The cruel goddess, and the twofold test,