O day—if I could cup my hands and drink of you,
And make this shining wonder be
A part of me!
O day! O day!
You lift and sway your colors on the sky
Till I am crushed with beauty. Why is there
More of reeling sunlit air
Than I can breathe? Why is there sound
In silence? Why is a singing wound
About each hour?
And perfume when there is no flower?
O day! O Day! How may I press
Nearer to loveliness?

Between pines, a pause
in the forest, transparent, yet visible,
like how no, in its nothing

is still an answer, is the water

I could not give her, the wish
taken out of the well; and her bones
left to vanish in their circle

become the circle, are the clearing

I approach. And when at last I am alone,
I ask her death to hold me, the way air holds up
a bird above its home. Or how my seat, when I stood up

became empty, and remained—in those moments

when she asked and I walked toward her—both an end
and a waiting,
and an end to the waiting.

Now the flowers are all folded
And the dark is going by. 
The evening is arising…
It is time to rest.
When I am sleeping
I find my pillow full of dreams. 
They are all new dreams:
No one told them to me
Before I came through the cloud. 
They remember the sky, my little dreams,
They have wings, they are quick, they are sweet. 
Help me tell my dreams 
To the other children, 
So that their bread may taste whiter, 
So that the milk they drink 
May make them think of meadows
In the sky of stars. 
Help me give bread to the other children
So that their dreams may come back:
So they will remember what they knew 
Before they came through the cloud.
Let me hold their little hands in the dark, 
The lonely children,
The babies that have no mothers any more. 
Dear God, let me hold up my silver cup 
For them to drink, 
And tell them the sweetness 
Of my dreams. 

‘Tis the last rose of Summer,
   Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
   Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
   No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes
   Or give sigh for sigh!

I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
   To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
   Go sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
   Thy leaves o’er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
   Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
   When friendships decay,
And from Love’s shining circle
   The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
   And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
   This bleak world alone?

Where does the sea end and the sky begin?
We sink in blue for which there is no word.
Two sails, fog-coloured, loiter on the thin
Mirage of ocean.
There is no sound of wind, nor wave, nor bird,
Nor any motion.
Except the shifting mists that turn and lift,
Showing behind the two limp sails a third,
Then blotting it again.

A gust, a spattering of rain,
The lazy water breaks in nervous rings.
Somewhere a bleak bell buoy sings,
Muffled at first, then clear,
Its wet, grey monotone.

The dead are here.
We are not quite alone.

My goal out-distances the utmost star, 
Yet is encompassed in my inmost Soul; 
I am my goal—my quest, to know myself. 
To chart and compass this unfathomed sea, 
Myself must plumb the boundless universe. 
My Soul contains all thought, all mystery, 
All wisdom of the Great Infinite Mind: 
This is to discover, I must voyage far, 
At last to find it in my pulsing heart.