The Complete Poems

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing alive enough to have strength to die. (from "Neutral Tones")

At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carollings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

I looked up from my writing, And gave a start to see, As if rapt in my inditing, The moon's full gaze on me.

This is the weather the cuckoo likes, And so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, And nestlings fly

Though fervent was our vow, Though ruddily ran our pleasure, Bliss has fulfilled its measure, And sees its sentence now. Ache deep; but make no moans: Smile out; but stilly suffer: The paths of love are rougher Than thoroughfares of stones.