If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again,
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

My OBERON, with ev'ry sprite
"That gilds the vapours of the night,
"Shall dance and weave the verdant ring
"With joy that mortals thus can sing;
"And when thou sigh'st MARIA'S name,
"And mourn'st to feel a hopeless flame,
"Eager they'll catch the tender note
"Just parting from thy tuneful throat,
"And bear it to the careless ear
"Of her who scorn'd a lover's tear. "

- QUEEN OF THE FARIES TO IL FERITO.


SWEET MAB! at thy command I flew
O'er glittering floods of midnight dew,
O'er many a silken violet's head,

O WHITE wind, numbing the world
to a mask of suffering hate!
and thy goblin pipes have skirl’d
all night, at my broken gate.

O heart, be hidden and kept
in a half-light colour’d and warm,
and call on thy dreams that have slept
to charm thee from hate and harm.

They are gone, for I might not keep;
my sense is beaten and dinn’d;
there is no peace but a grey sleep
in the pause of the wind.

O were my Love yon lilac fair,
   Wi' purple blossoms to the spring,
And I a bird to shelter there,
   When wearied on my little wing;
How I wad mourn when it was torn
   By autumn wild and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing
   When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd.

O gin my Love were yon red rose
   That grows upon the castle wa',
And I mysel a drap o' dew,
   Into her bonnie breast to fa';
O there, beyond expression blest,

O Nightingale! thou surely art
A creature of a "fiery heart":--
These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;
Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine;
A song in mockery and despite
Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
And steady bliss, and all the loves
Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.
I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze:
He did not cease; but cooed--and cooed;

O my mind,
Worship the lotus feet of the Indestructible One!
Whatever thou seest twixt earth and sky
Will perish.
Why undertake fasts and pilgrimages?
Why engage in philosophical discussions?
Why commit suicide in Banaras?
Take no pride in the body,
It will soon be mingling with the dust.
This life is like the sporting of sparrows,
It will end with the onset of night.
Why don the ochre robe
And leave Home as a sannyasi?
Those who adopt the external garb of a Jogi,
But do not penetrate to the secret,

O moon, large golden summer moon,
Hanging between the linden trees,
Which in the intermittent breeze
Beat with the rhythmic pulse of June!

O night-air, scented through and through
With honey-coloured flower of lime,
Sweet now as in that other time
When all my heart was sweet as you!

The sorcery of this breathing bloom
Works like enchantment in my brain,
Till, shuddering back to life again,
My dead self rises from its tomb.

And, lovely with the love of yore,
Its white ghost haunts the moon-white ways;

O HEART of Spring!
Spirit of light and love and joyous day,
So soon to faint beneath the fiery Summer:
Still smiles the Earth, eager for thee alway:
Welcome art thou, soever short thy stay,
Thou bold, thou blithe newcomer!
Whither, O whither this thy journeying,
O heart of Spring?

O heart of Spring!
After the stormy days of Winter’s reign,
When the keen winds their last lament are sighing,
The Sun shall raise thee up to life again:
In thy dim death thou shalt not suffer pain:

When voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still

Then come home my children the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies

No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep

Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed

It was a face which darkness could kill
in an instant
a face as easily hurt
by laughter or light

'We think differently at night'
she told me once
lying back languidly

And she would quote Cocteau

'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say
'whom I am constantly shocking'

Then she would smile and look away
light a cigarette for me
sigh and rise

and stretch
her sweet anatomy

let fall a stocking