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Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol


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for judgment; let them, if they can,

       From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,

       Create the new Ideal rule for man!

       Methinks that was not my inheritance;

       For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul

       Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

      Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away

       Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat

       Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day

       Blew all its torches out: I did not note

       The waning hours, to young Endymions

       Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!

      Mark how the yellow iris wearily

       Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed

       By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,

       Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,

       Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,

       Which ’gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.

      Come let us go, against the pallid shield

       Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,

       The corncrake nested in the unmown field

       Answers its mate, across the misty stream

       On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,

       And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,

      Scatters the pearlèd dew from off the grass,

       In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,

       Who soon in gilded panoply will pass

       Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion

       Hung in the burning east: see, the red rim

       O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him

      Already the shrill lark is out of sight,

       Flooding with waves of song this silent dell—

       Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight

       Than could be tested in a crucible!—

       But the air freshens, let us go, why soon

       The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!

       Table of Contents

      REQUIESCAT

      Tread lightly, she is near

       Under the snow,

       Speak gently, she can hear

       The daisies grow.

      All her bright golden hair

       Tarnished with rust,

       She that was young and fair

       Fallen to dust.

      Lily-like, white as snow,

       She hardly knew

       She was a woman, so

       Sweetly she grew.

      Coffin-board, heavy stone,

       Lie on her breast,

       I vex my heart alone,

       She is at rest.

      Peace, Peace, she cannot hear

       Lyre or sonnet,

       All my life’s buried here,

       Heap earth upon it.

      Avignon.

      SONNET ON APPROACHING ITALY

      I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned,

       Italia, my Italia, at thy name:

       And when from out the mountain’s heart I came

       And saw the land for which my life had yearned,

       I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:

       And musing on the marvel of thy fame

       I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame

       The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.

       The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair,

       And in the orchards every twining spray

       Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:

       But when I knew that far away at Rome

       In evil bonds a second Peter lay,

       I wept to see the land so very fair.

      Turin.

      SAN MINIATO

      See, I have climbed the mountain side

       Up to this holy house of God,

       Where once that Angel-Painter trod

       Who saw the heavens opened wide,

      And throned upon the crescent moon

       The Virginal white Queen of Grace—

       Mary! could I but see thy face

       Death could not come at all too soon.

      O crowned by God with thorns and pain!

       Mother of Christ! O mystic wife!

       My heart is weary of this life

       And over-sad to sing again.

      O crowned by God with love and flame!

       O crowned by Christ the Holy One!

       O listen ere the searching sun

       Show to the world my sin and shame.

      AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA

      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 and fell on Danae:

       Or a dread vision as when Semele

       Sickening for love and unappeased desire

       Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire

       Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:

       With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,

       And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand

       Before this supreme mystery of Love:

       Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,

       An angel with a lily in his hand,

       And over both the white wings of a Dove.

      Florence.

      ITALIA

      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 rich gold in every town is seen,

       And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride

       Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride

       Beneath one flag of red and white and green.

       O Fair and Strong!