And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for a kiss.
The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about.
O would, beloved, that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one.
There’s keen delight in what we have: The rattle of pebbles on the shore Under the receding wave.
I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.
Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.
My chair was nearest to the fire In every company That talked of love or politics, Ere Time transfigured me.
He Who is wrapped in purple robes, With planets in His care, Had pity on the least of things Asleep upon a chair.
Thought is a garment and the soul’s a bride That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide: Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
All men live in suffering I know as few can know, Whether they take the upper road Or stay content on the low...
Civilisation is hooped together, brought Under a rule, under the semblance of peace By manifold illusion...
I weave the shoes of Sorrow: Soundless shall be the footfall light In all men’s ears of Sorrow, Sudden and light.
Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity...
I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone...
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on.
How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?
And pluck till time and times are done the silver apples of the moon the golden apples of the sun.
I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled. Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
If what I say resonates with you, it’s merely because we’re branches of the same tree.