Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path be there or none,
While a fair region round the traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;
Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
If Thought and Love desert us from that day,
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse:
With Thought and Love companions of our way,
Whate’er the senses take or may refuse,
The Mind’s internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

My heart leaps up when I behold 
   A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began; 
So is it now I am a man; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 
   Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
 

Too many cracks precede 
the spectacular breaking. Each 

story begins in a different dark-
ness. And light: think how it catches

on any surface (pane or 
hinge or keyhole) and 

out of night (out of nothing), 
all at once: a window, 

a door. It’s a metaphor 
(and then it isn’t), darkness. 

When I dream again
it’s the old kitchen—I 

open the oven and sound, 
like ropes of heat, drifts 

out; a shimmering. Familiar 
and confusing. Uncanny,

and then unmistakable: our 
voices, recorded. Playback 

and loop, now—every aching 
word we whispered here.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of his madding fever!
O benefit of ill! now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruin’d love, when it is build anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
    So I return rebuked to my content
    And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel’d sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
    You are so strongly in my purpose bred
    That all the world besides methinks are dead.

Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,
       Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.
All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.
       (For heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!)
You look about, and all you see is fair;
       This mighty globe was made for you alone.
Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the heir.
       (Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)

A skeptic world you face with steady gaze;
       High in young pride you hold your noble head;
Gayly you meet the rush of roaring days.
       (Must you eat puppy biscuit on the bed?)
Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,
       Yours the white rapture of a wingèd soul,
Yours is a spirit like a May-day song.
       (God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)

“Whatever is, is good,” your gracious creed.
       You wear your joy of living like a crown.
Love lights your simplest act, your every deed.
       (Drop it, I tell you—put that kitten down!)
You are God’s kindliest gift of all,—a friend.
       Your shining loyalty unflecked by doubt,
You ask but leave to follow to the end.
       (Couldn’t you wait until I took you out?)

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

Slim Sentinels
Stretching lacy arms
About a slumbrous moon;
Black quivering
Silhouettes,
Tremulous,
Stencilled on the petal
Of a bluebell;
Ink sputtered
On a robin’s breast;
The jagged rent
Of mountains
Reflected in a
Stilly sleeping lake;
Fragile pinnacles
Of fairy castles;
Torn webs of shadows;
And
Printed ’gainst the sky—
The trembling beauty
Of an urgent pine.