And as the foolish merriment of stars Beside the cold pale sorrow of the moon, My little song, my little joy, my praise, Beside God’s ancient, everlasting rune.
Listen. With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees And fall.
These be Three silent things: The falling snow ... the hour Before the dawn ... the mouth of one Just dead.
“Why do You thus devise Evil against her?” “For that She is beautiful, delicate; Therefore.”
If it Were lighter touch Than petal of flower resting On grass, oh still too heavy it were, Too heavy!
Just now, Out of the strange Still dusk ... as strange, as still ... A white moth flew. Why am I grown So cold?
As it Were tissue of silver I’ll wear, O fate, thy grey, And go mistily radiant, clad Like the moon.
White doves of Cytherea, by your quest Across the blue Heaven’s bluest highest air, And by your certain homing to Love’s breast, Still to be true and ever true—I swear.
Little my lacking fortunes show For this to eat and that to wear; Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go! An obol pays the Stygian fare.
Sun and wind and beat of sea, Great lands stretching endlessly ... Where be bonds to bind the free? All the world was made for me!
Never the nightingale, Oh, my dear, Never again the lark Thou wilt hear; Though dusk and the morning still Tap at thy window-sill, Thou ever love call and call Thou wilt not hear at all, My dear, my dear.
I make my shroud, but no one knows— So shimmering fine it is and fair, With stitches set in even rows. I make my shroud, but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows, Humming a little wandering air, I make my shroud and no one knows, So shimmering fine it is and fair.
In the cold I will rise, I will bathe In waters of ice; myself Will shiver, and shrive myself, Alone in the dawn, and anoint Forehead and feet and hands; I will shutter the windows from light, I will place in their sockets the four Tall candles and set them a-flame In the grey of the dawn; and myself Will lay myself straight in my bed, And draw the sheet under my chin.
The hard sand breaks, And the grains of it Are clear as wine.
Far off over the leagues of it, The wind, Playing on the wide shore, Piles little ridges, And the great waves Break over it.