I studied Nature like a book

Men rack for meanings: yet I find

No rubric in the scarlet rose,

No moral in the murmuring wind,

No message in the snows.

For me the daisy shines a star,

The crocus flames a spire,

A horn of golden fire,

Narcissus glows a silver bar:

Cowslips, the golden breath of God,

I deem the poet's heritage,

And lilies silvering the sod

Breathe fragrance from his page.

No herald of the sun am I

But in a moonlit vale

A russet nightingale

Who pours sweet song, he knows not why,

Who pours like wine a gurgling note

Paining with sound his swarthy throat,

Who pours sweet song he recks not why

Nor hushes ever lest he die.

Phaethon

Ye weeping poplars by the shelvy slope

From murmurous lawns downdropping to the stream

On whom the dusk air like a sombre dream

Broods and a twilight ignorant of hope,

Say what compulsion drear has bid you seam

Your mossy sides with drop on eloquent drop

That in warm rillets from your eyes elope?

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Is it for the too patient, sure decay

Pale-gilded Autumn, aesthete of the years,

A gorgeous death, a fading glory wears

That thus along its tufted, downy way

Creeps slothfully this ooze of amber tears,

And thus with tearful gusts your branches sway

Sighing a requiem to your emerald day?

The Just Man

Where is the man whom hope nor fear can move?

Him the wise Gods approve.

The man divine of motive pure and steadfast will

Unbent to ill,

Whose way is plain nor swerves for power or gold

The high, straight path to hold:  —

Him only wise the wise Gods deem, him pure of lust;

Him only just.

Tho' men give rubies, tho' they bring a prize

Sweeter than Helen's eyes  —

Yea, costlier things than these things were, they shall not win

That man to sin.

Tho' the strong lords of earth his doom desire,

He shall not heed their ire,

Nor shall the numerous commons' stormy voice compel

His heart nor quell.

Tho' Ocean all her purple pride unroll,

It stirs, not shakes his soul.

He sees the billows lift their cowled heads on high

With undimmed eye.

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Pure fields he sees and groves of calm delight;

He turns into the night.

Hell is before; the swords await him; friends betray;

He holds his way.

He shall not fear tho' heaven in lightnings fall

Nor thunder's furious call,

Nor earthquake nor the sea: tho' fire, tho' flood assail,

He shall not quail.

Tho' God tear out the heavens like a page

And break the hills for rage,

Blot out the sun from being and all the great stars quench,

He will not blench.

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