When I am fretted to that wayward mood
Which urgeth me to shun the haunts of man
For serious silence and strict solitude,—
That passion spent, such solace as I can
(For instant loss of friends—from whom my rude,
Strange melancholy parts me) I take; and scan—
Half glad, half sad—wise Nature in her plan
And nice completions; and long time brood
Deeply and awfully, till some small theme
Or vast—the Robin's trill; the murmuring
Of mingling springs; the rushing of a stream,
Rapid and rough—or winds on their strong wing,

Within my casement came one night
The fairy Moon, so pure and white.
Around my brow a coronet
Of shining silver quaintly set
With rainbow gems, she there did place;
But when I turned my wistful face,
Lo! she had vanished, and my gaze
Saw naught save shadows 'mid the haze.

I felt a throb within my heart,
In which sad sorrow had no part;
Within my soul a yearning grew,
So sweet it thrilled me through and through.
A flute's soft warble echoed nigh,
As if an angel fluttered by;
And on my lips there fell a kiss;—
Speak! fairy Moon, interpret this!

When I am standing on a mountain crest,
Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray,
My love of you leaps foaming in my breast,
Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray;
My heart bounds with the horses of the sea,
And plunges in the wild ride of the night,
Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee
That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight.
Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you,
Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather,—
No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew,
But hale and hardy as the highland heather,

Dear Letters, Fond Letters,
Must I with you part?
You are such a source of joy
To my lonely heart.

Sweet Letters, Dear Letters,
What a tale you tell;
O, no power on earth can break
This strange mystic spell!

Dear Letters, Fond Letters,
You my secret know—
Don't you tell it, any one—
Let it live and grow.

Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop lies
Buried in sepulchre of ghastly snow;
But spring is floating up the southern skies,
And darkling the pale snowdrop waits below.

Let me persuade: in dull December's day
We scarce believe there is a month of June;
But up the stairs of April and of May
The hot sun climbeth to the summer's noon.

Yet hear me: I love God, and half I rest.
O better! God loves thee, so all rest thou.
He is our summer, our dim-visioned Best;—
And in his heart thy prayer is resting now.

Love is an odour from the heavenly bowers
Which stirs our senses tenderly, and brings
Dreams which are shadows of diviner things,
Beyond this grosser atmosphere of ours.
An oasis of verdure and of flowers,
Love smileth on the pilgrim's weary way;
There sweeter airs, there fresher waters play;
There purer solace speeds the tranquil hours.
This glorious passion, unalloyed, endowers
With moral beauty all who feel its fire;
Maid, wife and offspring, sister, mother, sire,
Are names and symbols of its hallowed powers.

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
Upon those hills of life, dim and immense—
The good we love, and sleep, our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills! And, higher than they,
Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.

Beyond all good I ever believed of thee,
Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,
My angel falls not short. They greet each other.

From babyhood I have known the beauty of earth—
I learnt it, I think, in the strange months before birth,
I learnt it passing and passing by each moon
From the harvest month into my natal June.
My mother, the dear, the lovely I hardly knew,
Bearing me must have walked and wandered through
Stubble of silver or gold, as moon or sun
Lit earth in the days when my body was begun.
And then October with leaves splendid and blown
She watched with my little body a little grown,
And winter fell, and into our being passed
Firm frost and icy rivers and the blast

I had forgotten—
as I
kept on forgetting
to remind
myself
that those who vow to forget
are the ones who can't forget.

There are two angels, messengers of light,
Both born of God, who yet are bitterest foes.
No human breast their dual presence knows.
As violently opposed as wrong and right,
When one draws near, the other takes swift flight.
And when one enters, thence the other goes.
Till mortal life in the immortal flows,
So must these two avoid each other's sight.
Despair and hope may meet within one heart,
The vulture may be comrade to the dove!
Pleasure and Pain swear friendship leal and true:
But till the grave unites them, still apart