CONTEMPLATION

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1. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
2. To Contemplation Faint gleams the evening radiance thro’ the sky, The sober twilight dimly darkens round; In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by, And the slow vapour curls along the ground. Now the pleas’d eye from yon lone cottage sees On the green mead the smoke long-shadowing play; The Red-breast on the blossom’d spray Warbles […]...
3. Come down, O Maid COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; And come, for Love […]...
4. The Lassitudes of Contemplation The Lassitudes of Contemplation Beget a force They are the spirit’s still vacation That him refresh The Dreams consolidate in action What mettle fair...
5. Contemplation Of The Sword Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide. The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, formerly used to kill men, but here In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms and counter-storms of general destruction; killing of men, Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or […]...
6. Work And Contemplation The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is full, and artfully her fingers feel With quick adjustment, provident control, The lines too subtly twisted to unroll Out to a perfect thread. I […]...
7. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
8. The Look The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word, No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord Looked only, on the traitor. None record What that look was, none guess; for those who have seen Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen, […]...
9. Affliction (III) My heart did heave, and there came forth, ‘O God’! By that I knew that thou wast in the grief, To guide and govern it to my relief, Making a sceptre of the rod: Hadst thou not had thy part, Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart. But since thy breath gave me both […]...
10. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
11. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
12. Psalm 08 Aug. 14. 1653. O Jehovah our Lord how wondrous great And glorious is thy name through all the earth? So as above the Heavens thy praise to set Out of the tender mouths of latest bearth, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou Hast founded strength because of all thy foes To stint […]...
13. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
14. TO DEATH Thou bidst me come away, And I’ll no longer stay, Than for to shed some tears For faults of former years; And to repent some crimes Done in the present times; And next, to take a bit Of bread, and wine with it; To don my robes of love, Fit for the place above; To […]...
15. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
16. Lines Written In Dejection When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone. The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished; I have nothing but the […]...
17. Eudaemon O happiness, I know not what far seas, Blue hills and deep, thy sunny realms surround, That thus in Music’s wistful harmonies And concert of sweet sound A rumor steals, from some uncertain shore, Of lovely things outworn or gladness yet in store: Whether thy beams be pitiful and come, Across the sundering of vanished […]...
18. On the Birth-Day of Queen Katherine WHile yet it was the Empire of the Night, And Stars still check’r’d Darkness with their Light, From Temples round the cheerful Bells did ring, But with the Peales a churlish Storm did sing. I slumbr’d; and the Heavens like things did show, Like things which I had seen and heard below. Playing on Harps […]...
19. Sonnet 39 – Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace To look through and behind this mask of me (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly With their rains), and behold my soul’s true face, The dim and weary witness of life’s race,- Because thou hast the faith and love to see, Through that same soul’s […]...
20. Sonnet 35 – If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt […]...
21. Love's Prayer Beloved, this the heart I offer thee Is purified from old idolatry, From outworn hopes, and from the lingering stain Of passion’s dregs, by penitential pain. Take thou it, then, and fill it up for me With thine unstinted love, and it shall be An earthy chalice that is made divine By its red draught […]...
22. My Kingdom A little kingdom I possess Where thoughts and feelings dwell, And very hard I find the task Of governing it well; For passion tempts and troubles me, A wayward will misleads, And selfishness its shadow casts On all my words and deeds. How can I learn to rule myself, To be the child I should, […]...
23. Abou Ben Adhem Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:- Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the Presence in the room […]...
24. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
25. In Memoriam POOR little child, my pretty boy, Why did the hunter mark thee out? Wert thou betrayed by thine own joy? Singled through childhood’s merry shout? And who on such a gentle thing Let slip the Hound that none may bar, That shall o’ertake the swiftest wing And tear the heavens down star by star? And […]...
26. Milton I Lover of beauty, walking on the height Of pure philosophy and tranquil song; Born to behold the visions that belong To those who dwell in melody and light; Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright! What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong, Fighting for freedom in a […]...
27. Specula When He appoints to meet thee, go thou forth – It matters not If south or north, Bleak waste or sunny plot. Nor think, if haply He thou seek’st be late, He does thee wrong. To stile or gate Lean thou thy head, and long! It may be that to spy thee He is mounting […]...
28. Self-Interrogation The evening passes fast away, ‘Tis almost time to rest; What thoughts has left the vanished day, What feelings, in thy breast? “The vanished day? It leaves a sense Of labour hardly done; Of little, gained with vast expense, – A sense of grief alone! “Time stands before the door of Death, Upbraiding bitterly; And […]...
29. 'Tis good the looking back on Grief ‘Tis good the looking back on Grief To re-endure a Day We thought the Mighty Funeral Of All Conceived Joy To recollect how Busy Grass Did meddle one by one Till all the Grief with Summer waved And none could see the stone. And though the Woe you have Today Be larger As the Sea […]...
30. To a Waterfowl Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek’st thou the plashy brink Of […]...
31. The Return of the Children “They” Traffics and Discoveries Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces Begging what Princes and Powers refused: “Ah, please will you let us go home?” Over the jewelled floor, nigh […]...
32. The peace of wild things When despair grows in me And I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the […]...
33. Heritage Now the dead past seems vividly alive, And in this shining moment I can trace, Down through the vista of the vanished years, Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face. And suddenly some secret spring’s released, And unawares a riddle is revealed, And I can read like large, black-lettered print, What seemed before a thing […]...
34. Resolve Build on resolve, and not upon regret, The structure of thy future. Do not grope Among the shadows of old sins, but let Thine own soul’s light shine on the path of hope And dissipate the darkness. Waste no tears Upon the blotted record of lost years, But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, […]...
35. The Thatch Out alone in the winter rain, Intent on giving and taking pain. But never was I far out of sight Of a certain upper-window light. The light was what it was all about: I would not go in till the light went out; It would not go out till I came in. Well, we should […]...
36. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
37. In the Days of the Golden Rod Across the meadow in brooding shadow I walk to drink of the autumn’s wine­ The charm of story, the artist’s glory, To-day on these silvering hills is mine; On height, in hollow, where’er I follow, By mellow hillside and searing sod, Its plumes uplifting, in light winds drifting, I see the glimmer of golden-rod. In […]...
38. Hymn 40 The business and blessedness of glorified saints. Rev. 7:13ff. “What happy men, or angels, these, That all their robes are spotless white? Whence did this glorious troop arrive At the pure realms of heav’nly light?” From torturing racks, and burning fires, And seas of their own blood, they came; But nobler blood has washed their […]...
39. Zermatt to the Matterhorn Thirty-two years since, up against the sun, Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight, Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height, And four lives paid for what the seven had won. They were the first by whom the deed was done, And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight To that day’s tragic […]...
40. Cana What can I tell you that you don’t know That will make you tremble again? Forsythia By the roadside, by Wet rocks, on the embankments Underplanted with hyacinth For ten years I was happy. You were there; in a sence, You were always with me, the house, the garden Constrantly lit, Not with lights as […]...