The Wound

I climbed to the crest,
   And, fog-festooned,
The sun lay west
   Like a crimson wound:

Like that wound of mine
   Of which none knew,
For I'd given no sign
   That it pierced me through.

Paying Calls

I went by footpath and by stile
    Beyond where bustle ends,
Strayed here a mile and there a mile
    And called upon some friends.

On certain ones I had not seen
    For years past did I call,
And then on others who had been
    The oldest friends of all.

It was the time of midsummer
    When they had used to roam;
But now, though tempting was the air,
    I found them all at home.

I spoke to one and other of them
    By mound and stone and tree
Of things we had done ere days were dim,
    But they spoke not to me.

Joys of Memory

   When the spring comes round, and a certain day
Looks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees
          And says, Remember,
     I begin again, as if it were new,
     A day of like date I once lived through,
     Whiling it hour by hour away;
          So shall I do till my December,
               When spring comes round.

   I take my holiday then and my rest
Away from the dun life here about me,
          Old hours re-greeting
     With the quiet sense that bring they must
     Such throbs as at first, till I house with dust,
     And in the numbness my heartsome zest
          For things that were, be past repeating
               When spring comes round.

"You were the sort that men forget"

   You were the sort that men forget;
     Though I--not yet! -
Perhaps not ever. Your slighted weakness
   Adds to the strength of my regret!

   You'd not the art--you never had
     For good or bad -
To make men see how sweet your meaning,
   Which, visible, had charmed them glad.

   You would, by words inept let fall,
     Offend them all,
Even if they saw your warm devotion
   Would hold your life's blood at their call.

   You lacked the eye to understand
     Those friends offhand
Whose mode was crude, though whose dim purport
   Outpriced the courtesies of the bland.

   I am now the only being who
     Remembers you
It may be. What a waste that Nature
   Grudged soul so dear the art its due!

The Tresses

     "When the air was damp
It made my curls hang slack
As they kissed my neck and back
While I footed the salt-aired track
     I loved to tramp.

     "When it was dry
They would roll up crisp and tight
As I went on in the light
Of the sun, which my own sprite
     Seemed to outvie.

     "Now I am old;
And have not one gay curl
As I had when a girl
For dampness to unfurl
     Or sun uphold!"

"The wind blew words"

The wind blew words along the skies,
And these it blew to me
Through the wide dusk: "Lift up your eyes,
Behold this troubled tree,
Complaining as it sways and plies;
It is a limb of thee."

"Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -
Dumb figures, wild and tame,
Yea, too, thy fellows who abound -
Either of speech the same
Or far and strange--black, dwarfed, and browned,
They are stuff of thy own frame."

I moved on in a surging awe
Of inarticulateness
At the pathetic Me I saw
In all his huge distress,
Making self-slaughter of the law
To kill, break, or suppress.

To the Moon

"What have you looked at, Moon,
     In your time,
   Now long past your prime?"
"O, I have looked at, often looked at
     Sweet, sublime,
Sore things, shudderful, night and noon
     In my time."

"What have you mused on, Moon,
     In your day,
   So aloof, so far away?"
"O, I have mused on, often mused on
     Growth, decay,
Nations alive, dead, mad, aswoon,
     In my day!"

"Have you much wondered, Moon,
     On your rounds,
   Self-wrapt, beyond Earth's bounds?"
"Yea, I have wondered, often wondered
     At the sounds
Reaching me of the human tune
     On my rounds."

"What do you think of it, Moon,
     As you go?
   Is Life much, or no?"
"O, I think of it, often think of it
     As a show
God ought surely to shut up soon,
     As I go."