Reynolds, come, thy pencil prove,
Reynolds, come and paint my love,
Shadowed here her picture see
Shadowed by the muse and me.
The muse who knows 'twere rash to dare
From life to paint a form so fair,
For sure so many charms combine
Half Apelles' fate were thine.
Waving in the wanton air
Black and shining paint her hair;
Could with Life the canvas bloom
Thou mightst bid it breathe perfume.
Let her forehead smooth and clear
Through her shading locks appear,
As at eve the shepherd sees
The silver crescent through the trees;

Among a grave fraternity of Monks,
For One, but surely not for One alone,
Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's skill,
Humbling the body, to exalt the soul;
Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong
And dissolution and decay, the warm
And breathing life of flesh, as if already
Clothed with impassive majesty, and graced
With no mean earnest of a heritage
Assigned to it in future worlds. Thou, too,
With thy memorial flower, meek Portraiture!
From whose serene companionship I passed
Pursued by thoughts that haunt me still; thou also—

Was the aim frustrated by force or guile,
When giants scooped from out the rocky ground,
Tier under tier, this semicirque profound?
(Giants—the same who built in Erin's isle
That Causeway with incomparable toil!)—
O, had this vast theatric structure wound
With finished sweep into a perfect round,
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile
Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas,
Vain earth! false world! Foundations must be laid
In Heaven; for, 'mid the wreck of IS and WAS ,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed

I crossed the dreary moor
In the clear moonlight: when I reached the hut
I entered in, but all was still and dark,
Only within the ruin I beheld
At a small distance, on the dusky ground
A broken pane which glittered in the moon
And seemed akin to life. There is a mood
A settled temper of the heart, when grief,
Become an instinct, fastening on all things
That promise food, doth like a sucking babe
Create it where it is not. From this time
That speck of glass was dearer to my soul
Than was the moon in heaven. Another time

Not harps and palms for these, O God,
Nor endless rest within the courts of Heaven,—
These happy boys who left the football field,
The hockey ground, the river, the eleven,
In a far grimmer game, with high elated souls
To score their goals.

Let these, O God, still test their manhood's strength,
Wrestle and leap and run,
Feel sea and wind and sun;
With Cherubim contend;
The timeless morning spend
In great celestial games.
Let there be laughter and a merry noise
Now that the fields of Heaven shine
With all these golden boys.

Theses on archetypes in rapsters' lyrics,
Menus describing hash in panegyrics,
Cheap vases aping Mings—
Pretentious things
Remind me of you.
Loud slurping noises from the next apartment,
A critic's lecture on what Hitler's art meant,
Dead snakes the tomcat brings—
Disquieting things
Remind me of you.

You came, swell dame, swooped down on me.
Like Visigoths you looted me,
You burnt me down, then booted me.

Lines sliced to little bits by deconstruction,
Loose gobs of fat removed by liposuction,
Toys after children's play—

A strong, stern Hand has steeled my heart,
And blessed me has the mouth of God.
I am the plough, I am the sod,
The tempest, and the lightning's dart.

I am the flood-swell none may pass,
The hurricane that wrecks, pursues.
And I am rain that glad bedews
A desert for one blade of grass.

I am the cloud-mist distant seen,
The echo from a mountain height,
I am a high deed's high delight,
And quickening sorrow that makes green.

I am the threshold and the key,
I am the gate and gate-way long.
I am a promise, and a song

With sharp white teeth the mountains tore his shroud
To learn his secret in their brutal way;
They hid his bones behind an ashen cloud—
Stone doors might yield to Christ again some day!
But some of him goes walking on their heights,
I know not if it be his flesh or bones—
His flesh, snow-white, and cold to man's delights,
His bones, like startled wind against loose stones.

He is a pale unhappy thing that lives
Yet has no life. Dead, he knows not death, yet
Mocks at shadows, the imprisoned sun.
As that lean bitter corpse the moon forgives

Wo'd I see Lawn, clear as the Heaven, and thin?
It sho'd be onely in my Julia's skin:
Which so betrayes her blood, as we discover
The blush of cherries, when a Lawn's cast over.

Yes , for me, for me he careth
With a brother's tender care;
Yes, with me, with me he shareth
Every burden, every fear.

Yes, o'er me, o'er me he watcheth,
Ceaseless watcheth, night and day:
Yes, even me, even me he snatcheth
From the perils of the way.

Yes, for me he standeth pleading,
At the mercy-seat above;
Ever for me interceding,
Constant in untiring love.

Yes, in me abroad he sheddeth
Joys unearthly,—love and light;
And to cover me he spreadeth
His paternal wing of might.

Yes, in me, in me he dwelleth;—