Sea Lullaby
The old moon is tarnished With smoke of the flood, The dead leaves are varnished With colour like blood. A treacherous smiler With teeth white as milk, A savage beguiler In sheathings of silk
Poor Earth
It is not heaven: bitter seed Leavens its entrails with despair It is a star where dragons breed: Devils have a footing there. The sky has bent it out of shape; The sun has
The Eagle and the Mole
Avoid the reeking herd, Shun the polluted flock, Live like that stoic bird, The eagle of the rock. The huddled warmth of crowds Begets and fosters hate; He keeps above the clouds His cliff
Escape
When foxes eat the last gold grape, And the last white antelope is killed, I shall stop fighting and escape Into a little house I’ll build. But first I’ll shrink to fairy size, With
Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
For this you’ve striven Daring, to fail: Your sky is riven Like a tearing veil. For this, you’ve wasted Wings of your youth; Divined, and tasted Bitter springs of truth. From sand unslakèd Twisted
Pretty Words
Poets make pets of pretty, docile words: I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish Which circle slowly with a silken swish, And tender ones, like downy-feathred birds: Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in
The Lost Path
The garden’s full of scented wallflowers, And, save that these stir faintly, nothing stirs; Only a distant bell in hollow chime Cried out just now for far-forgoten time, And three reverberate words the great