Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes,
Those folded hands, they cannot set you free;
Only with beauty wake wild memories—
Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be.
THE REVENANT
O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces,
And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth,
To'rd the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces,
Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth.
God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of;
Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me;
Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I'm drinking of,
'Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be.
Men all are shades, O Women.—Winds wist not of the way they blow.
Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare.
Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know
What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare.
Strange, strange, are ye all—except in beauty shared with her—
Since I seek one I loved, yet was faithless to in death.
Not life enough I heaped, so thus my heart must fare with her,
Now wrapt in the gross clay, bereft of life's breath.
MUSIC
When music sounds, gone is the earth I know,
And all her lovely things even lovelier grow;
Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees,
Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.
When music sounds, out of the water rise
Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes,
Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face,
With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place.
When music sounds, all that I was I am
Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came;
While from Time's woods break into distant song
The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.