The sun that hurt his lovers from on high
Is fallen; she more merciful is nigh,
The blessèd one whose beauty's even glow
Gave never wound to any shepherd's eye.
Above our lonely boat in shallows drifting,
Alone her plaintive form ascends the sky.
Oh, sing! the water-golds are deepening now,
Almost a hush is on the aspen bough;
Her light caresseth thine, as saint to saint
Sweet interchanged adorings may allow:
Sing, Eunoë, that lily throat uplifting:
They are so like, the holy Moon and thou!
[To Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]
Young father-poet! much in you I praise
Adventure high, romantic, vehement,
All with inviolate honour sealed and blent
To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier bays;
Your friendships too, your follies, whims, and frays;
And most, that verse of strict imperious bent
Heard sweetly as from some old harper's tent,
And clanging in the listener's brain for days.
At Framlingham to-night if there should be
No guest beyond a sea-born wind that sighs,
No guard save moonlight's crossed and trailing spears,
And I, your pilgrim, call you, Oh, let me
In at the gate! and smile into the eyes
That sought you, Surrey, down three hundred years.
[Planting the Poplar]
Because thou'rt not an oak
To breast the thunder-stroke,
Or flamy-fruited yew
Darker than Time, how few
Of birds or men or kine
Will love this throne of thine,
Scant Poplar, without shade
Inhospitably made!
Yet, branches never parted
From their straight secret bole,
Yet, sap too single-hearted!
Prosper as my soul.
In loneliness, in quaint
Perpetual constraint,
In gallant poverty,
A girt and hooded tree,
See if against the gale
Our leafage can avail:
Lithe, equal, naked, true,
Rise up as spirits do,
And be a spirit crying
Before the folk that dream!
My slender early-dying
Poplar, by the stream.