'Murmuring, 'twixt a murmur and moan,
Many a tune in a single tone,
For every ear with a secret true-
The sea-shell wants to whisper to you.'

'Yes-I hear it-far and faint,
Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;
Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain;
Like the wash of dreams in a weary brain.'

'By smiling lip and fixed eye,
You are hearing a song within the sigh:
The murmurer has many a lovely phrase-
Tell me, darling, the words it says.'

'I hear a wind on a boatless main
Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain;

I looked into my heart to write
And found a desert there.
But when I looked again I heard
Howling and proud in every word
The hyena despair.

Great summer sun, great summer sun,
All loss burns in trophies;
And in the cold sheet of the sky
Lifelong the fishlipped lovers lie
Kissing catastrophes.

O loving garden where I lay
When under the breasted tree
My son stood up behind my eyes
And groaned: Remember that the price
Is vinegar for me.

Great summer sun, great summer sun,
Turn back to the designer:

Has summer come without the rose,
Or left the bird behind?
Is the blue changed above thee,
O world! or am I blind?
Will you change every flower that grows,
Or only change this spot,
Where she who said, I love thee,
Now says, I love thee not?

The skies seemed true above thee,
The rose true on the tree;
The bird seemed true the summer through,
But all proved false to me.

Every love's the love before
In a duller dress.
That's the measure of my lore-
Here's my bitterness:
Would I knew a little more,
Or very much less!

Thou reck’nest seven Heavens; I but one:
And thou art it, Beloved! Voice and hand,
And eye and mouth, are but the angel band
Who minister around that highest throne
Thy godlike heart. And there I reign supreme,
And choose, at will, the angel who I deem
Will sing the sweetest, words I love to hear
That short, sweet song, whose echo clear
Will last throughout eternity:
“I love thee!
How I love thee!”

Suche waiwarde waies hath love that moste parte in discorde;
Our willes do stand wherby our hartes but seldom dooth accorde.
Disceyte is his delight, and to begyle and mocke
The symple hertes which he doth stryke with froward dyvers stroke.
He cawseth hertes to rage with golden burninge darte,
And doth alaye with ledden cold agayne the tothers harte.
Hot gleames of burning fyre and easye sparkes of flame
In balaunce of unegall weight he pondereth by ame.
From easye fourde, where I might wade and passe full well,

When Youth's warm heart beats high, my friend,
And Youth's blue sky is bright,
And shines in Youth's clear eye, my friend,
Love's early dawning light,
Let the free soul spurn care's control,
And while the glad days shine,
We'll use their beams for Youth's gay dreams
Of Love and Song and Wine.

Let not the bigot's frown, my friend,
O'ercast thy brow with gloom,
For Autumn's sober brown, my friend,
Shall follow Summer's bloom.
Let smiles and sighs and loving eyes
In changeful beauty shine,

Strings in the earth and air
Make music sweet;
Strings by the river where
The willows meet.

There's music along the river
For Love wanders there,
Pale flowers on his mantle,
Dark leaves on his hair.

All softly playing,
With head to the music bent,
And fingers straying
Upon an instrument.

Do not mention the name of love,
O my simple-minded companion.
Strange is the path
When you offer your love.
Your body is crushed at the first step.

If you want to offer love
Be prepared to cut off your head
And sit on it.
Be like the moth,
Which circles the lamp and offers its body.
Be like the deer, which, on hearing the horn,
Offers its head to the hunter.
Be like the partridge,
Which swallows burning coals
In love of the moon.
Be like the fish
Which yields up its life

O stony grey soil of Monaghan
The laugh from my love you thieved;
You took the gay child of my passion
And gave me your clod-conceived.

You clogged the feet of my boyhood
And I believed that my stumble
Had the poise and stride of Apollo
And his voice my thick tongued mumble.

You told me the plough was immortal!
O green-life conquering plough!
The mandril stained, your coulter blunted
In the smooth lea-field of my brow.

You sang on steaming dunghills
A song of cowards' brood,
You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,