The birches are mad with green points
the wood's edge is burning with their green,
burning, seething--No, no, no.
The birches are opening their leaves one
by one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold
and separate, one by one. Slender tassels
hang swaying from the delicate branch tips--
Oh, I cannot say it. There is no word.
Black is split at once into flowers. In
every bog and ditch, flares of
small fire, white flowers!--Agh,
the birches are mad, mad with their green.
The world is gone, torn into shreds

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;

Hail holy light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born,
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.

When the buds are blossoming,
Smiling welcome to the spring,
Lovers choose a wedding day -
Life is love in merry May!

Spring is green - Fal lal la!
Summer's rose - Fal lal la!
It is sad when Summer goes,
Fal la!
Autumn's gold - Fal lal la!
Winter's grey - Fal lal la!
Winter still is far away -
Fal la!
Leaves in Autumn fade and fall;
Winter is the end of all.
Spring and summer teem with glee:
Spring and summer, then, for me!
Fal la!

In the Spring-time seed is sown:
In the Summer grass is mown:

"What is this world?­thy school, O misery!
"Our only lesson is to learn to suffer."

- YOUNG.


LOVE, thou sportive fickle boy,
Source of anguish, child of joy,
Ever wounding­ever smiling,
Soothing still, and still beguiling;
What are all thy boasted treasures,
Tender sorrows, transient pleasures?
Anxious hopes, and jealous fears,
LAUGHING HOURS, and MOURNING YEARS.

What is FRIENDSHIP'S soothing name?
But a shad'wy, vap'rish flame;
Fancy's balm for ev'ry wound,
Ever sought, but rarely found;

What know we of the dead, who say these things,
Or of the life in death below the mould--
What of the mystic laws that rule the old
Grey realms beyond our poor imaginings
Where death is life? The bird with spray-wet wings
Knows more of what the deeps beneath him hold.
Let be! Warm hearts shall never wax a-cold,
But burn in roses through eternal springs;
For all the vanished fruit and flower of Time
Are flower and fruit in worlds we cannot see,
And all we see is as a shadow-mime
Of things unseen, and Time that comes to flee

WE are born; we laugh; we weep;
We love; we droop; we die!
Ah! wherefore do we laugh or weep?
Why do we live, or die?
Who knows that secret deep?
Alas, not I!

Why doth the violet spring
Unseen by human eye?
Why do the radiant seasons bring
Sweet thoughts that quickly fly?
Why do our fond hearts cling
To things that die?

We toil,—through pain and wrong;
We fight,—and fly;
We love; we lose; and then, ere long,
Stone-dead we lie.
O life! is all thy song

AH, my heart, the storm and sadness!
Wind that moans, uncomforted,
Requiem for Love that’s dead’
Love that’s dead!
Leafless trees that sough and sigh,
Gloom of earth, and grey of sky,
Ah, my heart, what storm and sadness!

Ah, my heart, those sweet Septembers!
Ah, the glory and the glow
Of the Spring-tides long ago,
Long ago!
Gleam of gold, and glint of green
On the grassy hillsides seen,
Ah, my heart, those sweet Septembers!

As are the sands, fair Licia, on the shore,
Or colored flowers, garlands of the spring,
Or as the frosts not seen, not felt before,
Or as the fruits that autumn forth doth bring;
As twinkling stars, the tinsel of the night,
Or as the fish that gallop in the seas;
As airs each part that still escapes our sight,
So are my sighs, controllers of my ease.
Yet these are such as needs must have an end,
For things finite none else hath nature done;
Only the sighs, which from my heart I send,
Will never cease, but where they first begun.

"WHEN will my troubled soul have rest?"
The beauteous LEWIN cried;
As thro' the murky shade of night
With frantic step she hied.

"When shall those eyes my GYNNETH'S face,
My GYNNETH'S form survey ?
When shall those longing eyes again
Behold the dawn of day ?"

Cold are the dews that wet my cheek,
The night-mist damps the ground;
Appalling echoes strike mine ear,
And spectres gleam around.

The vivid lightning's transient rays
Around my temples play;
'Tis all the light my fate affords,
To mark my thorny way.