TO THE WILLOW-TREE

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1. The Fir-Tree and the Brook The Fir-Tree looked on stars, but loved the Brook! “O silver-voiced! if thou wouldst wait, My love can bravely woo.” All smiles forsook The brook’s white face. “Too late! Too late! I go to wed the sea. I know not if my love would curse or bless thee. I may not, dare not, tarry to […]...
2. The Human Tree Many have Earth’s lovers been, Tried in seas and wars, I ween; Yet the mightiest have I seen: Yea, the best saw I. One that in a field alone Stood up stiller than a stone Lest a moth should fly. Birds had nested in his hair, On his shoon were mosses rare, Insect empires flourished […]...
3. The Shepherd's Tree Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred, Like to a warrior’s destiny! I love To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward, And hear the laugh of summer leaves above; Or on thy buttressed roots to sit, and lean In careless attitude, and there reflect On times and deeds and darings that have […]...
4. To His Honoured and Most Ingenious Friend Mr. Charles Cotton For brave comportment, wit without offence, Words fully flowing, yet of influence: Thou art that man of men, the man alone, Worthy the public admiration: Who with thine own eyes read’st what we do write, And giv’st our numbers euphony, and weight. Tell’st when a verse springs high, how understood To be, or not born […]...
5. The Tree Fair tree! for thy delightful shade ‘Tis just that some return be made; Sure some return is due from me To thy cool shadows, and to thee. When thou to birds dost shelter give, Thou music dost from them receive; If travellers beneath thee stay Till storms have worn themselves away, That time in praising […]...
6. Who never lost, are unprepared Who never lost, are unprepared A Coronet to find! Who never thirsted Flagons, and Cooling Tamarind! Who never climbed the weary league Can such a foot explore The purple territories On Pizarro’s shore? How many Legions overcome The Emperor will say? How many Colors taken On Revolution Day? How many Bullets bearest? Hast Thou the […]...
7. The Forerunners The harbingers are come. See, see their mark; White is their colour, and behold my head. But must they have my brain? must they dispark Those sparkling notions, which therein were bred? Must dulnesse turn me to a clod? Yet have they left me, Thou art still my God. Good men ye be, to leave […]...
8. Duty Surviving Self-Love Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others’ Wanings should’st thou fret? Then only might’st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings […]...
9. Divine Device Would it be loss or gain To hapless human-kind If we could feel no pain Of body or of mind? Would it be for our good If we were calloused so, And God in mercy should End all our woe? I wonder and I doubt: It is my bright belief We should be poor without […]...
10. Echoes From the Greek Mythology I – STARLIGHT With two bright eyes, my star, my love, Thou lookest on the stars above: Ah, would that I the heaven might be With a million eyes to look on thee. Plato. II – ROSELEAF A little while the rose, And after that the thorn; An hour of dewy morn, And then the […]...
11. The Service without Hope The Service without Hope Is tenderest, I think Because ’tis unsustained By stint Rewarded Work Has impetus of Gain And impetus of Goal There is no Diligence like that That knows not an Until...
12. Holy Sonnet IX: If Poisonous Minerals, And If That Tree If poisonous minerals, and if that tree Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned, alas, why should I be? Why should intent or reason, born in me, Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous? And Mercy being easy, and glorious To God; in his […]...
13. In The Willow Shade I sat beneath a willow tree, Where water falls and calls; While fancies upon fancies solaced me, Some true, and some were false. Who set their heart upon a hope That never comes to pass, Droop in the end like fading heliotrope The sun’s wan looking-glass. Who set their will upon a whim Clung to […]...
14. The Willow Who shall sing a simple ditty about the Willow, Dainty-fine and delicate as any bending spray That dandles high the dainty bird that flutters there to trill a Tremulously tender song of greeting to the May. Bravest, too, of all the trees! none to match your daring, First of greens to greet the Spring and […]...
15. This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimm’d mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top […]...
16. TO PHILLIS, TO LOVE AND LIVE WITH HIM Live, live with me, and thou shalt see The pleasures I’ll prepare for thee: What sweets the country can afford Shall bless thy bed, and bless thy board. The soft sweet moss shall be thy bed, With crawling woodbine over-spread: By which the silver-shedding streams Shall gently melt thee into dreams. Thy clothing next, shall […]...
17. Fidele FEAR no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o’ the great, Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke; Care no more to […]...
18. Fear No More Fear no more the heat o’ the sun; Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers come to dust. Fear no more the frown of the great, Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke: Care no more […]...
19. Love (I) Immortal love, authour of this great frame, Sprung from that beautie which can never fade; How hath man parcel’d out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, While mortall love doth all the title gain! Which siding with invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain, […]...
20. Lovest Thou Me? (John, xxi.16) Hark my soul! it is the Lord; ‘Tis Thy Saviour, hear His word; Jesus speaks and speaks to thee, “Say poor sinner, lovst thou me? “I deliver’d thee when bound, And when bleeding, heal’d thy wound; Sought thee wandering, set thee right, Turn’d thy darkness into light. “Can a woman’s tender care Cease […]...
21. My Lute Awake My lute awake! perform the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, And end that I have now begun; For when this song is sung and past, My lute be still, for I have done. As to be heard where ear is none, As lead to grave in marble stone, My song may pierce […]...
22. Away, Delights AWAY, delights! go seek some other dwelling, For I must die. Farewell, false love! thy tongue is ever telling Lie after lie. For ever let me rest now from thy smarts; Alas, for pity go And fire their hearts That have been hard to thee! Mine was not so. Never again deluding love shall know […]...
23. As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment) As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank, (By the slant current’s pressure scoop’d away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol […]...
24. The Lime-tree Bower my Prison [Addressed to Charles Lamb, o Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimm’d mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top […]...
25. 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, […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. The Spice-Tree This is the song The spice-tree sings: “Hunger and fire, Hunger and fire, Sky-born Beauty- Spice of desire,” Under the spice-tree Watch and wait, Burning maidens And lads that mate. The spice-tree spreads And its boughs come down Shadowing village and farm and town. And none can see But the pure of heart The great […]...
28. The Willow On sweet young earth where the myrtle presses, Long we lay, when the May was new; The willow was winding the moon in her tresses, The bud of the rose was told with dew. And now on the brittle ground I’m lying, Screaming to die with the dead year’s dead; The stem of the rose […]...
29. Willow And I grew up in patterned tranquillity, In the cool nursery of the young century. And the voice of man was not dear to me, But the voice of the wind I could understand. But best of all the silver willow. And obligingly, it lived With me all my life; it’s weeping branches Fanned my […]...
30. TO HIS CONSCIENCE Can I not sin, but thou wilt be My private protonotary? Can I not woo thee, to pass by A short and sweet iniquity? I’ll cast a mist and cloud upon My delicate transgression, So utter dark, as that no eye Shall see the hugg’d impiety. Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please And […]...
31. FINNISH SONG IF the loved one, the well-known one, Should return as he departed, On his lips would ring my kisses, Though the wolf’s blood might have dyed them; And a hearty grasp I’d give him, Though his finger-ends were serpents. Wind! Oh, if thou hadst but reason, Word for word in turns thou’dst carry, E’en though […]...
32. Sonnet XXXI Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead, And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But […]...
33. Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposèd dead, And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts, And all those friends which I thought burièd. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But […]...
34. Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
35. The Tree: An Old Man's Story I Its roots are bristling in the air Like some mad Earth-god’s spiny hair; The loud south-wester’s swell and yell Smote it at midnight, and it fell. Thus ends the tree Where Some One sat with me. II Its boughs, which none but darers trod, A child may step on from the sod, And twigs […]...
36. Psalm 86 Thy gracious ear, O Lord, encline, O hear me I thee pray, For I am poor, and almost pine With need, and sad decay. Preserve my soul, for *I have trod Heb. I am good, loving, Thy waies, and love the just, a doer of good and Save thou thy servant O my God holy […]...
37. Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse. Wilt thou not haply say, “Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed, Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay, But […]...
38. Sonnet CI O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say ‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d; Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay; But […]...
39. Willow Poem It is a willow when summer is over, A willow by the river From which no leaf has fallen nor Bitten by the sun Turned orange or crimson. The leaves cling and grow paler, Swing and grow paler Over the swirling waters of the river As if loth to let go, They are so cool, […]...
40. A Dialogue-Anthem Alas, poor Death! Where is thy glory? Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting? Alas, poor mortal, void of story! Go spell and read how I have killed thy King. Poor Death! And who was hurt thereby? Thy curse being laid on Him makes thee accurst. Let losers talk, yet thou shalt die; These […]...