OUT in the wastes of the West countrie,
Out where the white stars shine,
Grim and silent as such men be,
Rideth a man with a history—
Anthony Considine.
For the ways of men they are manifold
As their differing views in life;
Some sell themselves for the lust of gold,
And some for the lust of strife:
But this man counted the world well lost
For the love of his neighbour’s wife.

They fled together, as those must flee
Whom all men hold in blame;
Each to the other must all things be

THE LADY.

IN the small and great world too,

What most charms a woman's heart?
It is doubtless what is new,

For its blossoms joy impart;
Nobler far is what is true,

For fresh blossoms it can shoot

Even in the time of fruit.

THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN.

With the Nymphs in wood and cave

Paris was acquainted well,
Till Zeus sent, to make him rave,

Three of those in Heav'n who dwell;
And the choice more trouble gave

Than e'er fell to mortal lot,

Whether in old times or not.

Words go on travelling from voice
to voice while the phones are still
and the wires hum in the cold. Now
and then dark winter birds settle
slowly on the crossbars, where huddled
they caw out their loneliness. Except
for them the March world is white
and barely alive. The train to Providence
moans somewhere near the end
of town, and the churning of metal
on metal from so many miles away
is only a high thin note trilling
the frozen air. Years ago I lived
not far from here, grown to fat
and austerity, a man who came

THIS little vault, this narrow room,
Of Love and Beauty is the tomb;
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,
For ever set to us: by Death
Sent to enflame the World Beneath.
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain
More sweetness than shall spring again;
A budding Star, that might have grown
Into a Sun when it had blown.
This hopeful Beauty did create
New life in Love's declining state;
But now his empire ends, and we
From fire and wounding darts are free;

You call me an angel of love and of light,
A being of goodness and heavenly fire,
Sent out from God’s kingdom to guide you aright,
In paths where your spirits may mount and aspire.
You say that I glow like a star on its course,
Like a ray from the alter, a spark from the source.

Now list to my answer; let all the world hear it;
I speak unafraid what I know to be true:
A pure, faithful love is the creative spirit
Which makes women angels! I live in but you.
We are bound soul to soul by life’s holiest laws;

And, the last day being come, Man stood alone
Ere sunrise on the world's dismantled verge,
Awaiting how from everywhere should urge
The Coming of the Lord. And, behold, none

Did come, -- but indistinct from every realm
Of earth and air and water, growing more
And louder, shriller, heavier, a roar
Up the dun atmosphere did overwhelm

His ears; and as he looked affrighted round
Every manner of beast innumerable
All thro' the shadows crying grew, until
The wailing was like grass upon the ground.

And you love me

I love you.

You are, then, cold coward.

Aye; but, beloved,
When I strive to come to you,
Man's opinions, a thousand thickets,
My interwoven existence,
My life,
Caught in the stubble of the world
Like a tender veil --
This stays me.
No strange move can I make
Without noise of tearing
I dare not.

If love loves,
There is no world
Nor word.
All is lost
Save thought of love
And place to dream.
You love me?

I love you.

Long walks at night--
that's what good for the soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired housewives
trying to fight off
their beer-maddened husbands.

You lose your love for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

In a very ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained.

You are afraid.
If you found the perfect love
It would scald your hands,
Rip the skin from your nerves,
Cause havoc with a computered heart.

You lose your love for her and then it is her who is lost.

And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wandering away --
To see thus around me my youth's early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day?
Though haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine,
The snow -- fall of time may be stealing -- what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
We'll wear the gay tinge of youth's roses again.

What soften'd remembrances come o'er the heart,
In gazing on those we've been lost to so long!
The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part,