Mirage
How is it that, being gone, you fill my days, And all the long nights are made glad by thee? No loneliness is this, nor misery, But great content that these should be the
The Allies
August 14th, 1914 Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The Zigzagging cry Of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the Head Of the serpent to its tail,
In Answer to a Request
You ask me for a sonnet. Ah, my Dear, Can clocks tick back to yesterday at noon? Can cracked and fallen leaves recall last June And leap up on the boughs, now stiff and
Roads
I know a country laced with roads, They join the hills and they span the brooks, They weave like a shuttle between broad fields, And slide discreetly through hidden nooks. They are canopied like
The Tree of Scarlet Berries
The rain gullies the garden paths And tinkles on the broad sides of grass blades. A tree, at the end of my arm, is hazy with mist. Even so, I can see that it
Music
The neighbour sits in his window and plays the flute. From my bed I can hear him, And the round notes flutter and tap about the room, And hit against each other, Blurring to
The Exeter Road
Panels of claret and blue which shine Under the moon like lees of wine. A coronet done in a golden scroll, And wheels which blunder and creak as they roll Through the muddy ruts
J K. Huysmans
A flickering glimmer through a window-pane, A dim red glare through mud bespattered glass, Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleet Across uneven pavements sunk in slime To scatter and then quench itself
Fool's Money Bags
Outside the long window, With his head on the stone sill, The dog is lying, Gazing at his Beloved. His eyes are wet and urgent, And his body is taut and shaking. It is
The Poet
What instinct forces man to journey on, Urged by a longing blind but dominant! Nothing he sees can hold him, nothing daunt His never failing eagerness. The sun Setting in splendour every night has
Before the Altar
Before the Altar, bowed, he stands With empty hands; Upon it perfumed offerings burn Wreathing with smoke the sacrificial urn. Not one of all these has he given, No flame of his has leapt
The Foreigner
Have at you, you Devils! My back’s to this tree, For you’re nothing so nice That the hind-side of me Would escape your assault. Come on now, all three! Here’s a dandified gentleman, Rapier
Aubade
As I would free the white almond from the green husk So would I strip your trappings off, Beloved. And fingering the smooth and polished kernel I should see that in my hands glittered
Fragment
What is poetry? Is it a mosaic Of coloured stones which curiously are wrought Into a pattern? Rather glass that’s taught By patient labor any hue to take And glowing with a sumptuous splendor,
The Coal Picker
He perches in the slime, inert, Bedaubed with iridescent dirt. The oil upon the puddles dries To colours like a peacock’s eyes, And half-submerged tomato-cans Shine scaly, as leviathans Oozily crawling through the mud.