I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
I gave what other women gave That stepped out of their clothes But when this soul, its body off Naked to naked goes, He it has found shall find therein What none other knows.
Things said or done long years ago Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed Gray Truth is now her painted toy.
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?
Nothing that we love overmuch Is ponderable to our touch.
Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.
And many a poor man that has roved Loved and thought himself beloved From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.
I have nothing more to give you than my heart. Spanish saying Hearts are not to be had as a gift hearts are to be earned...
If soul my look and body touch, Which is the more blest?
What were all the world’s alarms To mighty Paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen’s arms?
Grant me an old man’s frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call.
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
One had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain. Because the mountain grass Cannot keep the form Where the mountain hare has lain.
If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.
For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world.
Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?