Strange little spring, by channels past our telling,
Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling;
Through what blind ways, we know not whence
...
Still towards the steep Parnassian way
The moon-led pilgrims wend,
Ah, who of all that start to-day
...
O rose! forbear to flaunt yourself,
All bloom and dew-
I once, sad-hearted as I am,
Was young as you.
...
Who dough shall knead as for God's sake
Shall fill it with celestial leaven,
And every loaf that she shall bake
Be eaten of the Blest in heaven.
...
Wild bird, I stole you from your nest,
And cannot find your nest again;
To hear you chirp a little while
I wrung your mother's heart with pain.
...
Our tears, our songs, our laurels--what are these
To thee in thy Gethsemane of loss,
Stretched in thine unimagined agonies
...
O loveliest face, on which we look our last--
Not without hope we may again behold
Somewhere, somehow, when we ourselves have passed
...
Of all the wind-blown dust of faces fair,
Had I a god's re-animating breath,
Thee, like a perfumed torch in the dim air
...
Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine,
Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read;
Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine
...
Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs
But unto thee belongs:
Though I indeed before our true day came
...