’T is but a score of hours when he didst swear
My sorrow and my joy to share.
    Despite the fates, fore’er ;
But now he’s gone to cash again his lie ;
    Others his shame with me will wear,
                  Why should I die?

Last night his lips my very feet didst burn ;
His kisses dropt, my love to earn,
    Whichever way he’d turn ;
But now he’s gone another soul to rob,
    Another heart to lure and spurn,
                   Why should I sob?

He did not kiss me when he said good-bye ;
I let him go, not asking why,
    Nor do I for him sigh ;
He’s gone another virgin breast to tear.
    He’s gone on other lips to die,
                    Why should I care?

if i believe 
in death be sure 
of this 
it is 

because you have loved me, 
moon and sunset 
stars and flowers 
gold crescendo and silver muting 

of seatides 
i trusted not, 
                        one night 
when in my fingers 

drooped your shining body 
when my heart 
sang between your perfect 
breasts 

darkness and beauty of stars 
was on my mouth petals danced 
against my eyes 
and down 

the singing reaches of 
my soul 
spoke 
the green-

greeting pale-
departing irrevocable 
sea 
i knew thee death. 

                                  and when 
i have offered up each fragrant 
night,when all my days 
shall have before a certain 

face become 
white 
perfume 
only, 

         from the ashes 
then 
thou wilt rise and thou 
wilt come to her and brush 

the mischief from her eyes and fold 
her 
mouth the new 
flower with 

thy unimaginable 
wings,where dwells the breath 
of all persisting stars

We lay in shade diaphanous
And spoke the light that burns in us

As in the glooming’s net I caught her,
She shimmered like reflected water!

Romantic and emphatic moods
Are not for her whom life eludes...

Its vulgar tinsel round her fold?
She'd rather shudder with the cold,

Attend just this elusive hour,
A shadow in a shadow bower,

A moving imagery so fine,
It must have been her soul near mine

And so we blended and possessed
Each in each the phantom guest,

Inseparate, we scarcely met;
Yet other love-nights we forget!

To think that my eyes once could draw your eyes down for a moment,
    From their lifting and straining up toward the opulent heights— 
To think that my face was the face you liked best once to look on,
    When fairer ones softened to pleading ’neath shimmering lights! 

Regret you? Not I! I am glad that your proud heart disowned me,
    The while it was lying so sullenly under my feet; 
Since Love was to you but a snare and a pain, and you knew not
    Its height and its depth, all unsounded, and soundless, and sweet. 

Too dark was the shadow that fell from your face bending over me—
    Too hot was the pant of your breath on the spring of my cheek! 
I but dimly divined, yet I shrank from the warring of passions
    So strong that they circled and shook me while leaving you weak. 

Acknowledge! You knew not aright if you loved me or hated;
    But you pushed me aside, since I hindered your seeing the heights. 
They were but the cold, barren peaks up which selfish sould clamber,
    And for which they surrender the gardens of scented delights. 

From where I am sitting I watch your lone steps going upward,
    And to-night I am back in those nights that we knew at the start.
I think of your eyes dark with pain, full of thwarted caressings,
    And suddenly, after these years, from my hold slips my heart! 

But no matter! There’s too much between us—we cannot go back now
    I’m glad of it!—yes, I will say it right on to the end!— 
I’m glad that my once sore-reluctant, tempestuous lover
    Hasn’t leisure nor heart now to be my most leisurely friend! 

My lover! Why how you would fling me the word back in fury!
    Remembering you loved me at arms’ length, in spite of denial; 
That the protests were double: each went from the struggle unconquered:
    The hour of soft, silken compliance was not on our dial. 

You were angry for loving me, all in despite of your reasoning—
     I was angry because you were able to hold your love down; 
And jealous—because in the scales of your logic you weighed me,
    And slighted me for the dry bread of a sordid renown. 

So I laughed at your loving—I laughed in the teeth of your passion;
    And I made myself fair, but to stand in you light from sheer malice;
Delighting to hold up the brim to the lips that were thirsting,
    While I scorned to let fall on their dryness one drop from the chalice!

Alas, for the lips that are strange to the sweetness of kisses—
    The kisses we dream of, and cry for, and think on in dying! 
Alas, for unspoken endearments that stifle the breathing;
    Since such in the depths of two hearts, never wedded, are lying! 

You say, “It is best!” but I know that you catch your breath fiercely.
    I say, “It is best!” but a sob struggles up from my bosom; 
For out of a million of flowers that our fingers are free of,
    The one that we care for the most is the never-plucked blossom.

Yet, O, my Unbroken, my strong one—too strong for my breaking!—
    I am glad of the hours when we warred with each other and Love:
Though you never drew nearer than once when your hair swept my fingers
    And their touch flushed your cheek as you bent at my side for my glove. 

Never mind! I felt kisses that broke through the bitterest sayings.
    Never mind! since caresses were hid under looks that were proud.
Shall we say there’s no moon when she leaves her dear earth in the shadow
    And hides all her light in the breast of some opportune cloud? 

Yet this germ of a love—could it ever have bourgeoned to fulness?—
    For us could there ever have been a sereneness of bliss, 
With the thorns overtopping our flowers, turning fondness to soreness?
    Ah, no! ’twas a thousand times better it ended like this! 

And yet, if I went to you now in the stress of your toiling—
    If we stood but one moment alone while I looked in your eyes— 
What a melting of ice there would be! What a quickening of currents!
    What thrills of despairing delight betwixt claspings and cries!

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight:
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
        All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
        To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

When we two parted
   In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
   To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
   Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
   Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
   Sunk chill on my brow— 
It felt like the warning
   Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
   And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
   And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
   A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
   Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
   Who knew thee too well—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
   Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
   In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
   Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
   After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
   With silence and tears.

So, we'll go no more a roving
    So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
    And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
    And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
    And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
    And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
    By the light of the moon.

I.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

III.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Now that our love has drifted
To a quiet close,
Leaving the empty ache
That always follows when beauty goes;
Now that you and I,
Who stood tip-toe on earth
To touch our fingers to the sky,
Have turned away
To allow our little love to die—
Go, dear, seek again the magic touch.
But if you are wise,
As I shall be wise,
You will not again
Love over much.

There is a solitude in seeing you, 

Followed by your company when you are gone.

You are like heaven’s veils of lightning. 

I cannot see till afterward

How beautiful you are. 

There is a blindness in seeing you, 

Followed by the sight of you when you are gone.

The little river twittering in the twilight,
The wan, wondering look of the pale sky,
            This is almost bliss.

And everything shut up and gone to sleep,
All the troubles and anxieties and pain
            Gone under the twilight.

Only the twilight now, and the soft “Sh!” of the river
            That will last forever.

And at last I know my love for you is here,
I can see it all, it is whole like the twilight,
It is large, so large, I could not see it before
Because of the little lights and flickers and interruptions,
             Troubles, anxieties, and pains.

             You are the call and I am the answer,
             You are the wish, and I the fulfillment,
             You are the night, and I the day.
                         What else—it is perfect enough,
                         It is perfectly complete,
                         You and I.
Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!

Coming at an end, the lovers
Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where
Did it end? There is no telling. No love is
Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves’ boundaries
From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye
Like death.
Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length
Of coiled rope
Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths
Its endings.
But, you will say, we loved
And some parts of us loved
And the rest of us will remain
Two persons. Yes,
Poetry ends like a rope.

Translated from an anonymous eighth-century Irish poem


It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.

It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.

My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you that put that darkness over my life.

You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

What can I give you, my lord, my lover,
You who have given the world to me,
Showed me the light and the joy that cover
The wild sweet earth and restless sea?

All that I have are gifts of your giving—
If I gave them again, you would find them old,
And your soul would weary of always living
Before the mirror my life would hold.

What shall I give you, my lord, my lover?
The gift that breaks the heart in me:
I bid you awake at dawn and discover
I have gone my way and left you free.

There is no magic any more,
      We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
      Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea—
      There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
      Beside the shore.

But though the pool is safe from storm
      And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
      For all its peace.