Why is she set so far, so far above me,
— And yet not altogether raised above?
I would give all the world that she should love me,
— My soul that she should never learn to love.

Not as I am thou art — and yet thou art.
To touch thy hand, I thought was touching thee.
I looked into thine eyes, the soul to see.
I felt thee in the beating of thy heart.
Hands, eyes, and heart thou hast not — yet thou art.

As darting swallows skim across a pool,
— Whose tranquil depths reflect a tranquil sky,
So, o'er the depths of silence, dark and cool,
— Our winged words dart playfully,
And seldom break
— The quiet surface of the lake,
As they flit by.

I HAVE forged me in sevenfold heats
— A shield from foes and lovers,
And no one knows the heart that beats
— Beneath the shield that covers.

There with two lives before me did I choose,
There did I lose to win, and win to lose.
Not till the day all secrets are displayed
Shall that great Angel shew the choice I made.

When my dead went home to my dead,
And I was left alone,
Never a tear I shed,
And I never moaned a moan.
Never a word I said
When the dead went home to my dead,
And I was left alone.

I KNOW not how it is with me — the light
Is cruel to mine eyes since thou art dead, —
And yet, when all the hours of day are sped,
My grief cries louder in the silent night.

The sun lights up
each mote upon the table,
but the old man
finds the page blurred
and lights the lamp.

The sun shining on the little waves of the bay, the little leaves of the hedge —
with these I school myself to be content.

If you ask me about the plans that I made last night
of steel and granite —
I think the sun must have melted them,
or this gentle wind blown them away.