Sonnet XVI: Who Shall Invoke Her

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1. The Sun kept setting setting still The Sun kept setting setting still No Hue of Afternoon Upon the Village I perceived From House to House ’twas Noon The Dusk kept dropping dropping still No Dew upon the Grass But only on my Forehead stopped And wandered in my Face My Feet kept drowsing drowsing still My fingers were awake Yet why […]...
2. Along The Sun-Drenched Roadside Along the sun-drenched roadside, from the great Hollow half-treetrunk, which for generations Has been a trough, renewing in itself An inch or two of rain, I satisfy My thirst: taking the water’s pristine coolness Into my whole body through my wrists. Drinking would be too powerful, too clear; But this unhurried gesture of restraint Fills […]...
3. Sonnet VII To me, a pilgrim on that journey bound Whose stations Beauty’s bright examples are, As of a silken city famed afar Over the sands for wealth and holy ground, Came the report of one a woman crowned With all perfection, blemishless and high, As the full moon amid the moonlit sky, With the world’s praise […]...
4. Sonnet XXVI: Where Antique Woods Where antique woods o’er-hang the mountains’s crest, And mid-day glooms in solemn silence lour; Philosophy, go seek a lonely bow’r, And waste life’s fervid noon in fancied rest. Go, where the bird of sorrow weaves her nest, Cooing, in sadness sweet, through night’s dim hour; Go, cull the dew-drops from each potent flow’r That med’cines […]...
5. Realization I smiled with skeptic mocking where they told me you were dead, You of the airy laughter and lightly twinkling feet; “They tell a dream that haunted a chill gray dawn,” I said, “Death could not touch or claim a thing so vivid and so sweet!” I looked upon you coffined amid your virgin flowers, […]...
6. The Wounded Bird In the wide bed Under the freen embroidered quilt With flowers and leaves always in soft motion She is like a wounded bird resting on a pool. The hunter threw his dart And hit her breast, Hit her but did not kill. “O my wings, lift me lift me! I am not dreadfully hurt!” Down […]...
7. Sonnet LXXVIII So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse And found such fair assistance in my verse As every alien pen hath got my use And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing And heavy ignorance aloft to fly Have added feathers to the learned’s wing And […]...
8. Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse As every alien pen hath got my use, And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learnèd’s wing And […]...
9. Sonnet 10 I have sought Happiness, but it has been A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit, And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit More fair of outward hue than sweet within. Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil, There only, chastened by fatigue and toil, I knew what came […]...
10. Sonnet XV: Since to Obtain Thee His Remedy for Love Since to obtain thee nothing will be stead, I have a med’cine that shall cure my love, The powder of her heart dried, when she is dead, That gold nor honor ne’er had power to move, Mixt with her tears, that ne’er her true-love crost Nor at fifteen ne’er long’d to […]...
11. Sonnet 25 – A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne From year to year until I saw thy face, And sorrow after sorrow took the place Of all those natural joys as lightly worn As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace Were changed to long despairs, till God’s […]...
12. Sonnet: At Ostend, July 22nd 1787 How sweet the tuneful bells’ responsive peal! As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease, So piercing to my heart their force I feel! And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall, And now, along the white and level tide, They fling their melancholy music wide, Bidding […]...
13. 342. Song-Sweet Afton FLOW gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes, Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise; My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. Thou stockdove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen, Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear, […]...
14. Peace Ah, that Time could touch a form That could show what Homer’s age Bred to be a hero’s wage. ‘Were not all her life but storm Would not painters paint a form Of such noble lines,’ I said, ‘Such a delicate high head, All that sternness amid charm, All that sweetness amid strength?’ Ah, but […]...
15. Subway Wind Far down, down through the city’s great, gaunt gut, The gray train rushing bears the weary wind; In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut, Leaving the sick and heavy air behind. And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door To give their summer jackets to the breeze; Their laugh is swallowed in the […]...
16. Sonnet LXIII: The Gossamer O’er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze, The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread; Waving in every sighing air that stirs, As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread: A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew Spangle the texture of the fairy loom, As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew, Had wept departed Summer’s transient bloom: […]...
17. Sonnet To the River Otter Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have past, What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimm’d the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut […]...
18. Lightly Come or Lightly Go Lightly come or lightly go: Though thy heart presage thee woe, Vales and many a wasted sun, Oread let thy laughter run, Till the irreverent mountain air Ripple all thy flying hair. Lightly, lightly – ever so: Clouds that wrap the vales below At the hour of evenstar Lowliest attendants are; Love and laughter song-confessed […]...
19. Sonnet 21 – Say over again, and yet once over again Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem ‘a cuckoo-song,’ as thou dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted By […]...
20. Song Of Proserpine Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, Thou from whose immortal bosom Gods and men and beasts have birth, Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom, Breathe thine influence most divine On thine own child, Proserpine. If with mists of evening dew Thou dost nourish these young flowers Till they grow in scent and hue Fairest children of […]...
21. Fragments In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules, I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes Were my life’s warmth and sunshine, outspread arms My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced In yielding to all amorous influence And multiple impulsion of the flesh, To feel within my being surge and […]...
22. Sonnet LIII: Clear Anker Another to the River Anker Clear Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore My soul-shrin’d saint, my fair Idea, lies, O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore The crystal stream refined by her eyes, Where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the Spring Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers, Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing Among the dainty dew-impearled […]...
23. Sonnet XXVI SWeet is the Rose, but growes vpon a brere; Sweet is the Iunipere, but sharpe his bough; Sweet is the Eglantine, but pricketh nere; Sweet is the firbloome, but his braunches rough. Sweet is the Cypresse, but his rynd is tough, Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill; Sweet is the broome-flowre, but […]...
24. Sonnet XCVIII From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April dress’d in all his trim Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him. Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me […]...
25. From you have I been absent in the spring… (Sonnet 98) From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him, Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odor and in hue, Could make me any […]...
26. Sonnet XVI But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? And fortify yourself in your decay With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, Much liker than […]...
27. Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me […]...
28. Sonnet 01: Thou Art Not Lovelier Than Lilacs,-No Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,-no, Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair Than small white single poppies,-I can bear Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though From left to right, not knowing where to go, I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear So […]...
29. Sonnet 99: The forward violet thus did I chide The forward violet thus did I chide: “Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.” The lily I condemnèd for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had […]...
30. Sonnet 16: But wherefore do not you a mightier way But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time, And fortify your self in your decay With means more blessèd than my barren rhyme? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset, With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers, Much liker […]...
31. Palanquin Bearers Lightly, O lightly we bear her along, She sways like a flower in the wind of our song; She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream, She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream. Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing, We bear her along like a pearl […]...
32. Sonnet VIII Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw […]...
33. Sonnet XLII: Composed During a Walk The dark and pillowy cloud, the sallow trees, Seem o’er the ruins of the year to mourn; And, cold and hollow, the inconstant breeze Sobs thro’ the falling leaves and wither’d fern. O’er the tall brow of yonder chalky bourn, The evening shades their gather’d darkness fling, While, by the lingering light, I scarce discern […]...
34. Sonnet XCIX The forward violet thus did I chide: Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had […]...
35. To One In Bedlam With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars, Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine; Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares, Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine Lift his long, […]...
36. Penance My lover died a century ago, Her dear heart stricken by my sland’rous breath, Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know The peace of death. Men pass my grave, and say, “‘Twere well to sleep, Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!” How should they know the vigils that I keep, The tears […]...
37. In The Gold Room – A Harmony Her ivory hands on the ivory keys Strayed in a fitful fantasy, Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly, Or the drifting foam of a restless sea When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold Like the delicate gossamer […]...
38. Sonnet 23 XXIII Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the Old Law did save, And such, as yet once […]...
39. Sonnet XIII I fancied, while you stood conversing there, Superb, in every attitude a queen, Her ermine thus Boadicea bare, So moved amid the multitude Faustine. My life, whose whole religion Beauty is, Be charged with sin if ever before yours A lesser feeling crossed my mind than his Who owning grandeur marvels and adores. Nay, rather […]...
40. If the foolish, call them "flowers&quot If the foolish, call them “flowers” Need the wiser, tell? If the Savants “Classify” them It is just as well! Those who read the “Revelations” Must not criticize Those who read the same Edition With beclouded Eyes! Could we stand with that Old “Moses” “Canaan” denied Scan like him, the stately landscape On the other […]...