A roar thro’ the tall twin elm-trees
The mustering storm betrayed:
The South-wind seized the willow
That over the water swayed.
Then fell the steady deluge
In which I strove to doze,
Hearing all night at my window
The knock of the winter rose.
The rainy rose of winter!
An outcast it must pine.
And from thy bosom outcast
Am I, dear lady mine.
WHEN I WOULD IMAGE
When I would image her features,
Comes up a shrouded head:
I touch the outlines, shrinking;
She seems of the wandering dead.
But when love asks for nothing,
And lies on his bed of snow,
The face slips under my eyelids,
All in its living glow.
Like a dark cathedral city,
Whose spires, and domes, and towers
Quiver in violet lightnings,
My soul basks on for hours.
THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE
Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsoured
He knew thy sons. He probed from hell to hell
Of human passions, but of love deflowered
His wisdom was not, for he knew thee well.
Thence came the honeyed corner at his lips,
The conquering smile wherein his spirit sails
Calm as the God who the white sea-wave whips,
Yet full of speech and intershifting tales,
Close mirrors of us: thence had he the laugh
We feel is thine: broad as ten thousand beeves
At pasture! thence thy songs, that winnow chaff
From grain, bid sick Philosophy’s last leaves
Whirl, if they have no response—they enforced
To fatten Earth when from her soul divorced.