A Man Young and Old + 

First Love + 

Though nurtured like the sailing moon + 

In beauty’s murderous brood, + 

She walked awhile and blushed awhile + 

And on my pathway stood + 

Until I thought her body bore + 

A heart of flesh and blood. + 

But since I laid a hand thereon + 

And found a heart of stone + 

I have attempted many things + 

And not a thing is done, + 

For every hand is lunatic + 

That travels on the moon. + 

She smiled and that transfigured me + 

And left me but a lout, + 

Maundering here, and maundering there, + 

Emptier of thought + 

Than heavenly circuit of its stars + 

When the moon sails out. + 

Human Dignity + 

Like the moon her kindness is, + 

If kindness I may call + 

What has no comprehension in’t, + 

But is the same for all + 

As though my sorrow were a scene + 

Upon a painted wall. + 

So like a bit of stone I lie + 

Under a broken tree. + 

I could recover if I shrieked + 

My heart’s agony + 

To passing bird, but I am dumb + 

From human dignity. + 

The Mermaid + 

A mermaid found a swimming lad, + 

Picked him for her own, + 

Pressed her body to his body, + 

Laughed; and plunging down + 

Forgot in cruel happiness + 

That even lovers drown. + 

The Death of the Hare + 

I have pointed out the yelling pack, + 

The hare leap to the wood, + 

And when I pass a compliment + 

Rejoice as lover should + 

At the drooping of an eye + 

At the mantling of the blood. + 

Then suddenly my heart is wrung + 

By her distracted air + 

And I remember wildness lost + 

And after, swept from there, + 

Am set down standing in the wood + 

At the death of the hare. + 

The Empty Cup + 

A crazy man that found a cup, + 

When all but dead of thirst, + 

Hardly dared to wet his mouth + 

Imagining, moon accursed, + 

That another mouthful + 

And his beating heart would burst. + 

October last I found it too + 

But found it dry as bone, + 

And for that reason am I crazed + 

And my sleep is gone. + 

His Memories + 

We should be hidden from their eyes, + 

Being but holy shows + 

And bodies broken like a thorn + 

Whereon the bleak north blows, + 

To think of buried Hector + 

And that none living knows. + 

The women take so little stock + 

In what I do or say + 

They’d sooner leave their cosseting + 

To hear a jackass bray; + 

My arms are like the twisted thorn + 

And yet there beauty lay; + 

The first of all the tribe lay there + 

And did such pleasure take⁠— + 

She who had brought great Hector down + 

And put all Troy to wreck⁠— + 

That she cried into this ear + 

Strike me if I shriek. + 

The Friends of His Youth + 

Laughter not time destroyed my voice + 

And put that crack in it, + 

And when the moon’s pot-bellied + 

I get a laughing fit, + 

For that old Madge comes down the lane + 

A stone upon her breast, + 

And a cloak wrapped about the stone, + 

And she can get no rest + 

With singing hush and hush-a-bye; + 

She that has been wild + 

And barren as a breaking wave + 

Thinks that the stone’s a child. + 

And Peter that had great affairs + 

And was a pushing man + 

Shrieks, “I am King of the Peacocks,” + 

And perches on a stone; + 

And then I laugh till tears run down + 

And the heart thumps at my side, + 

Remembering that her shriek was love + 

And that he shrieks from pride. + 

Summer and Spring + 

We sat under an old thorn-tree + 

And talked away the night, + 

Told all that had been said or done + 

Since first we saw the light, + 

And when we talked of growing up + 

Knew that we’d halved a soul + 

And fell the one in t’other’s arms + 

That we might make it whole; + 

Then Peter had a murdering look + 

For it seemed that he and she + 

Had spoken of their childish days + 

Under that very tree. + 

O what a bursting out there was, + 

And what a blossoming, + 

When we had all the summer time + 

And she had all the spring. + 

The Secrets of the Old + 

I have old women’s secrets now + 

That had those of the young; + 

Madge tells me what I dared not think + 

When my blood was strong, + 

And what had drowned a lover once + 

Sounds like an old song. + 

Though Margery is stricken dumb + 

If thrown in Madge’s way, + 

We three make up a solitude; + 

For none alive to-day + 

Can know the stories that we know + 

Or say the things we say: + 

How such a man pleased women most + 

Of all that are gone, + 

How such a pair loved many years + 

And such a pair but one, + 

Stories of the bed of straw + 

Or the bed of down. + 

His Wildness + 

O bid me mount and sail up there + 

Amid the cloudy wrack, + 

For Peg and Meg and Paris’ love + 

That had so straight a back, + 

Are gone away, and some that stay, + 

Have changed their silk for sack. + 

Were I but there and none to hear + 

I’d have a peacock cry + 

For that is natural to a man + 

That lives in memory, + 

Being all alone I’d nurse a stone + 

And sing it lullaby. + 