To Ailsa Rock

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1. Rock And Hawk Here is a symbol in which Many high tragic thoughts Watch their own eyes. This gray rock, standing tall On the headland, where the seawind Lets no tree grow, Earthquake-proved, and signatured By ages of storms: on its peak A falcon has perched. I think here is your emblem To hang in the future sky; […]...
2. So, so, rock-a-by so! So, so, rock-a-by so! Off to the garden where dreamikins grow; And here is a kiss on your winkyblink eyes, And here is a kiss on your dimpledown cheek And here is a kiss for the treasure that lies In the beautiful garden way up in the skies Which you seek. Now mind these three […]...
3. COMFORT TO A YOUTH THAT HAD LOST HIS LOVE What needs complaints, When she a place Has with the race Of saints? In endless mirth, She thinks not on What’s said or done In earth: She sees no tears, Or any tone Of thy deep groan She hears; Nor does she mind, Or think on’t now, That ever thou Wast kind: But changed above, […]...
4. To Homer Standing aloof in giant ignorance, Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades, As one who sits ashore and longs perchance To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas. So thou wast blind; but then the veil was rent, For Jove uncurtain’d Heaven to let thee live, And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent, And Pan […]...
5. THE REMORSE OF THE DEAD O SHADOWY Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleep In the deep heart of a black marble tomb; When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keep Only one rainy cave of hollow gloom; And when the stone upon thy trembling breast, And on thy straight sweet body’s supple grace, Crushes thy will and keeps thy […]...
6. To A Lady On The Death Of Her Husband GRIM monarch! see, depriv’d of vital breath, A young physician in the dust of death: Dost thou go on incessant to destroy, Our griefs to double, and lay waste our joy? Enough thou never yet wast known to say, Though millions die, the vassals of thy sway: Nor youth, nor science, not the ties of […]...
7. PROXIMITY OF THE BELOVED ONE I THINK of thee, whene’er the sun his beams O’er ocean flings; I think of thee, whene’er the moonlight gleams In silv’ry springs. I see thee, when upon the distant ridge The dust awakes; At midnight’s hour, when on the fragile bridge The wanderer quakes. I hear thee, when yon billows rise on high, With […]...
8. Christmas Bells “I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till, ringing, singing […]...
9. The Grey Rock Poets with whom I learned my trade. Companions of the Cheshire Cheese, Here’s an old story I’ve remade, Imagining ‘twould better please Your cars than stories now in fashion, Though you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death, And though at bottling […]...
10. In No Strange Land The kingdom of God is within you O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! Does the fish soar to find the ocean, The eagle plunge to find the air That we ask of the stars in motion If they have […]...
11. Sonnet II: High on a Rock High on a rock, coaeval with the skies, A Temple stands, rear’d by immortal pow’rs To Chastity divine! ambrosial flow’rs Twining round icicles, in columns rise, Mingling with pendent gems of orient dyes! Piercing the air, a golden crescent tow’rs, Veil’d by transparent clouds; while smiling hours Shake from their varying wings celestial joys! The […]...
12. To An Unborn Pauper Child Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently, And though thy birth-hour beckons thee, Sleep the long sleep: The Doomsters heap Travails and teens around us here, And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear. Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh, And laughters fail, and greetings die; Hopes dwindle; yea, Faiths waste away, Affections and enthusiasms numb: […]...
13. The Apparition When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead, And that thou think’st thee free From all solicitation from me, Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, And thee, feigned vestal, in worse arms shall see; Then thy sick taper will begin to wink, And he, whose thou art then, being tired before, Will, […]...
14. Whales Weep Not! They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains The hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent. All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge On and on, and dive beneath the icebergs. The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers There they blow, there […]...
15. A Fever Oh do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone, That thee I shall not celebrate, When I remember, thou wast one. But yet thou canst not die, I know, To leave this world behind, is death, But when thou from this world wilt go, The whole world vapors with […]...
16. On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till […]...
17. Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa O THOU undaunted daughter of desires! By all thy dower of lights and fires; By all the eagle in thee, all the dove; By all thy lives and deaths of love; By thy large draughts of intellectual day, And by thy thirsts of love more large than they; By all thy brim-fill’d bowls of fierce […]...
18. Holy Sonnet X: Death Be Not Proud Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which yet thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must low And soonest […]...
19. Fragment of an Ode to Maia MOTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia! May I sing to thee As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae? Or may I woo thee In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles, By bards who died content on pleasant sward, Leaving great verse unto a little […]...
20. Sonnet 41 – I thank all who have loved me in their hearts XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all Who paused a little near the prison-wall To hear my music in its louder parts Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s Or temple’s occupation, beyond call. But thou, who, in my […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. 321. Song-Craigieburn Wood SWEET closes the ev’ning on Craigieburn Wood, And blythely awaukens the morrow; But the pride o’ the spring in the Craigieburn Wood Can yield to me nothing but sorrow. Chorus.-Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie, And O to be lying beyond thee! O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep That’s laid in the bed beyond […]...
23. Holy Innocents Sleep, little Baby, sleep, The holy Angels love thee, And guard thy bed, and keep A blessed watch above thee. No spirit can come near Nor evil beast to harm thee: Sleep, Sweet, devoid of fear Where nothing need alarm thee. The Love which doth not sleep, The eternal arms around thee: The shepherd of […]...
24. To His Mistress Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye? Without thy light what light remains in me? Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee; I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. Thou art my life-if […]...
25. Sonnet 20 – Beloved, my Beloved, when I think Beloved, my Beloved, when I think That thou wast in the world a year ago, What time I sat alone here in the snow And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink No moment at thy voice, but, link by link, Went counting all my chains as if that so They never could fall off […]...
26. Special Pleading Time, hurry my Love to me: Haste, haste! Lov’st not good company? Here’s but a heart-break sandy waste ‘Twixt Now and Then. Why, killing haste Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee! Oh, would that I might divine Thy name beyond the zodiac sign Wherefrom our times-to-come descend. He called thee ‘Sometime’. Change it, […]...
27. The Prohibition Take heed of loving me; At least remember I forbade it thee; Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs and tears, By being to thee then what to me thou wast; But so great joy our life at once outwears; Then, lest thy love by my death […]...
28. Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me Love is enough: draw near and behold me Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter, And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after; For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter. Pass by […]...
29. The dead babe Last night, as my dear babe lay dead, In agony I knelt and said: “0 God! what have I done, Or in what wise offended Thee, That Thou should’st take away from me My little son? “Upon the thousand useless lives, Upon the guilt that vaunting thrives, Thy wrath were better spent! Why should’st Thou […]...
30. In San Lorenzo Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night? Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear? Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear When the word falls from heaven Let there be light. Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite To wake thee while the old sorrow and […]...
31. In Memoriam Paul Celan Lay these words into the dead man’s grave Next to the almonds and black cherries – Tiny skulls and flowering blood-drops, eyes, And Thou, O bitterness that pillows his head. Lay these words on the dead man’s eyelids Like eyebrights, like medieval trumpet flowers That will flourish, this time, in the shade. Let the beheaded […]...
32. The Three Enemies THE FLESH “Sweet, thou art pale.” “More pale to see, Christ hung upon the cruel tree And bore His Father’s wrath for me.” “Sweet, thou art sad.” “Beneath a rod More heavy, Christ for my sake trod The winepress of the wrath of God.” “Sweet, thou art weary.” “Not so Christ: Whose mighty love of […]...
33. NIGHT SONG WHEN on thy pillow lying, Half listen, I implore, And at my lute’s soft sighing, Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? For at my lute’s soft sighing The stars their blessings pour On feelings never-dying; Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? Those feelings never-dying My spirit aid to soar From earthly conflicts trying; Sleep on! […]...
34. Perinde AC Cadaver In a vision Liberty stood By the childless charm-stricken bed Where, barren of glory and good, Knowing nought if she would not or would, England slept with her dead. Her face that the foam had whitened, Her hands that were strong to strive, Her eyes whence battle had lightened, Over all was a drawn shroud […]...
35. Hymn 97 Christ our wisdom, righteousness, etc. 1 Cor. 1:30. Buried in shadows of the night We lie till Christ restores the light; Wisdom descends to heal the blind, And chase the darkness of the mind. Our guilty souls are drowned in tears Till his atoning blood appears; Then we awake from deep distress, And sing, “The […]...
36. The Rock and The Bubble Oh! a bare, brown rock Stood up in the sea, The waves at its feet Dancing merrily. A little bubble Once came sailing by, And thus to the rock Did it gayly cry, “Ho! clumsy brown stone, Quick, make way for me: I’m the fairest thing That floats on the sea. “See my rainbow-robe, See […]...
37. The Curse of Kehama I charm thy life, From the weapons of strife, From stone and from wood, From fire and from flood, From the serpent’s tooth, And the beast of blood. From sickness I charm thee, And time shall not harm thee; But earth, which is mine, Its fruits shall deny thee; And water shall hear me, And […]...
38. Sonnet LXXIV But be contented: when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee: The earth can have but earth, which is his due; My […]...
39. The Timber Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs, Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, Pass’d o’er thy head; many light hearts and wings, Which now are dead, lodg’d in thy living bowers. And still a new succession sings and flies; Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot Towards the old and still […]...
40. Sonnet 74: But be contented when that fell arrest But be contented when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away; My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee, The earth can have but earth, which is his due; My […]...