A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

The World

By day she woos me, soft, exceeding fair:

But all night as the moon so changeth she;

Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy

And subtle serpents gliding in her hair.

By day she woos me to the outer air,

Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety:

But through the night, a beast she grins at me,

A very monster void of love and prayer.

By day she stands a lie: by night she stands

In all the naked horror of the truth

With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.

Is this a friend indeed; that I should sell

My soul to her, give her my life and youth,

Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?

Acme

Sleep, unforgotten sorrow, sleep awhile;

Make even awhile as tho’ I might forget,

Let the wound staunch thy tedious fingers fret

Till once again I look abroad and smile

Warmed in the sunlight: let no tears defile

This hour’s content, no conscious thorns beset

My path; O sorrow slumber, slumber yet

A moment, rouse not yet the smouldering pile.

So shalt thou wake again with added strength

O unforgotten sorrow, stir again

The slackening fire, refine the lulling pain

To quickened torture and a subtler edge:

The wrung cord snaps at last; beneath the wedge

The toughest oak groans long but rends at length.

* * *

So tired am I, so weary of to-day,

So unrefreshed from foregone weariness,

So overburdened by foreseen distress,

So lagging and so stumbling on my way,

I scarce can rouse myself to watch or pray,

To hope, or aim, or toil for more or less,—

Ah, always less and less, even while I press

Forward and toil and aim as best I may.

Half-starved of soul and heartsick utterly,

Yet lift I up my heart and soul and eyes

(Which fail in looking upward) toward the prize:

Me, Lord, Thou seest though I see not Thee;

Me now, as once the Thief in Paradise,

Even me, O Lord my Lord, remember me.

A Wintry Sonnet

A Robin said: The Spring will never come,

And I shall never care to build again.

A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,

My sap will never stir for sun or rain.

The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,

I neither care to wax nor care to wane.

The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,

Because earth’s rivers cannot fill the main., —

When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest,

And trilled a lover’s song in sheer delight.

Grey hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might

Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.

The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,

Dimpled his blue, yet thirsted evermore.

Goblin Market

Morning and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy:

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpecked cherries

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,

Swart-headed mulberries,

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, dewberries,

Pine-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries, —

All ripe together

In summer weather,—

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly;

Come buy, come buy;

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,

Come buy, come buy”.

Evening by evening

Among the brookside rushes,

Laura bowed her head to hear,

Lizzie veiled her blushes:

Crouching close together

In the cooling weather,

With clasping arms and cautioning lips,

With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.

“Lie close”, Laura said,

Pricking up her golden head:

“We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?”

“Come buy”, call the goblins

Hobbling down the glen.

“O! cried Lizzie, Laura, Laura,

You should not peep at goblin men”.

Lizzie covered up her eyes

Covered close lest they should look;

Laura reared her glossy head,

And whispered like the restless brook:

“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,

Down the glen tramp little men.

One hauls a basket,

One