The lily’s withered chalice falls Around its rod of dusty gold, And from the beech-trees on the wold The last wood-pigeon coos and calls. The gaudy leonine sunflower Hangs black…
Posts published in “Poems”
A white mist drifts across the shrouds, A wild moon in this wintry sky Gleams like an angry lion’s eye Out of a mane of tawny clouds. The muffled steersman…
To outer senses there is peace, A dreamy peace on either hand Deep silence in the shadowy land, Deep silence where the shadows cease. Save for a cry that echoes…
My limbs are wasted with a flame, My feet are sore with travelling, For, calling on my Lady’s name, My lips have now forgot to sing. O Linnet in the…
Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide! Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen Because…
Her ivory hands on the ivory keys Strayed in a fitful fantasy, Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly, Or the drifting foam of a…
Out of the mid-wood’s twilight Into the meadow’s dawn, Ivory limbed and brown-eyed, Flashes my Faun! He skips through the copses singing, And his shadow dances along, And I know…
The sky is laced with fitful red, The circling mists and shadows flee, The dawn is rising from the sea, Like a white lady from her bed. And jagged brazen…
The Thames nocturne of blue and gold Changed to a Harmony in grey: A barge with ochre-coloured hay Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold The yellow fog came…
The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned like a heated opal through the air; We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair For the blue lands that to…
It is full winter now: the trees are bare, Save where the cattle huddle from the cold Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear The autumn’s gaudy livery whose…
I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat, The oranges on each o’erhanging spray Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day; Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet…
The wild bee reels from bough to bough With his furry coat and his gauzy wing, Now in a lily-cup, and now Setting a jacinth bell a-swing, In his wandering;…
In the glad springtime when leaves were green, O merrily the throstle sings! I sought, amid the tangled sheen, Love whom mine eyes had never seen, O the glad dove…
(To my Friend Henry Irving) The silent room, the heavy creeping shade, The dead that travel fast, the opening door, The murdered brother rising through the floor, The ghost’s white…
The apple trees are hung with gold, And birds are loud in Arcady, The sheep lie bleating in the fold, The wild goat runs across the wold, But yesterday his…
The silver trumpets rang across the Dome: The people knelt upon the ground with awe: And borne upon the necks of men I saw, Like some great God, the Holy…
Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is…
I. O goat-foot God of Arcady! This modern world is grey and old, And what remains to us of thee? No more the shepherd lads in glee Throw apples at…
The seasons send their ruin as they go, For in the spring the narciss shows its head Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red, And in the autumn…
I. He was a Grecian lad, who coming home With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily Stood at his galley’s prow, and let the foam Blow through his crisp brown…
A ring of gold and a milk-white dove Are goodly gifts for thee, And a hempen rope for your own love To hang upon a tree. For you a House…
I have no store Of gryphon-guarded gold; Now, as before, Bare is the shepherd’s fold. Rubies nor pearls Have I to gem thy throat; Yet woodland girls Have loved the…
(To Ellen Terry) As one who poring on a Grecian urn Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made, God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid, And for…
The oleander on the wall Grows crimson in the dawning light, Though the grey shadows of the night Lie yet on Florence like a pall. The dew is bright upon…
I am weary of lying within the chase When the knights are meeting in market-place. Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread…
Was this His coming! I had hoped to see A scene of wondrous glory, as was told Of some great God who in a rain of gold Broke open bars…
Set in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide? The earth, a brittle…
To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught Of all the great things men have saved from Time, The withered body of a girl was brought Dead ere…
How steep the stairs within King’s houses are For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread, And O how salt and bitter is the bread Which falls from this Hound’s table,;…
Is it thy will that I should wax and wane, Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey, And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain Whose brightest threads…
Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown From antique reeds to common folk unknown: And often launched our bark upon that…
Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone With no green weight of laurels round his head, But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan…
O singer of Persephone! In the dim meadows desolate Dost thou remember Sicily? Still through the ivy flits the bee Where Amaryllis lies in state; O Singer of Persephone! Simaetha…