Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein,
A time for labor and thought,

A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and a space for delight,
And beauty and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;

With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,

In his eyes foreknowledge of death; He weaves, and is clothed with derision; Sows, and he shall not reap; His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

LOVE AND LOVE'S MATES

We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair; thou art goodly, O Love; Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove.

Thy feet are as winds that divide the stream of the sea;

Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee.

Thou art swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire;

Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire;

And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid;

Her eyes are the eyes of a bride whom delight makes afraid;

As the breath in the buds that stir is her bridal breath:

But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death.

NATURE

O that I now, I too were

By deep wells and water-floods,
Streams of ancient hills, and where
All the wan green places bear
Blossoms cleaving to the sod,
Fruitless fruit, and grasses fair,
Or such darkest ivy-buds
As divide thy yellow hair,
Bacchus, and their leaves that nod
Round thy fawnskin brush the bare
Snow-soft shoulders of a god;
There the year is sweet, and there
Earth is full of secret springs,
And the fervent rose-cheeked hours,
Those that marry dawn and noon,
There are sunless, there look pale
In dim leaves and hidden air,

Pale as grass or latter flowers,
Or the wild vine's wan wet rings
Full of dew beneath the moon,
And all day the nightingale
Sleeps, and all night sings;
There in cold remote recesses
That nor alien eyes assail,
Feet, nor imminence of wings,
Nor a wind nor any tune,
Thou, O queen and holiest,
Flower the whitest of all things,
With reluctant lengthening tresses
And with sudden splendid breast
Save of maidens unbeholden,
There art wont to enter, there
Thy divine swift limbs and golden
Maiden growth of unbound hair,
Bathed in waters white,

Shine, and many a maid's by thee
In moist woodland or the hilly
Flowerless brakes where wells abound
Out of all men's sight;

Or in lower pools that see
All their marges clothed all round
With the innumerable lily,
Whence the golden-girdled bee
Flits through flowering rush to fret
White or duskier violet,

Fair as those that in far years
With their buds left luminous
And their little leaves made wet
From the warmer dew of tears,
Mother's tears in extreme need,
Hid the limbs of Iamus,
Of thy brother's seed;
For his heart was piteous

Toward him, even as thine heart now
Pitiful toward us;

Thine, O goddess, turning hither
A benignant blameless brow;
Seeing enough of evil done

And lives withered as leaves wither
In the blasting of the sun;
Seeing enough of hunters dead,
Ruin enough of all our year,

Herds and harvest slain and shed,
Herdsmen stricken many an one,
Fruits and flocks consumed together,
And great length of deadly days.
Yet with reverent lips and fear
Turn we toward thee, turn and praise
For this lightening of clear weather
And prosperities begun.

For not seldom, when all air
As bright water without breath
Shines, and when men fear not, fate
Without thunder unaware
Breaks, and brings down death.
Joy with grief ye great gods give,

Good with bad, and overbear All the pride of us that live, All the high estate,

As

ye long since overbore, As in old time long before,

Many a strong man and a great,
All that were.

But do thou, sweet, otherwise,
Having heed of all our prayer,
Taking note of all our sighs;
We beseech thee by thy light,
By thy bow, and thy sweet eyes,
And the kingdom of the night,
Be thou favorable and fair;
By thine arrows and thy might
And Orion overthrown;
By the maiden thy delight,
By the indissoluble zone
And the sacred hair.

FATE

Not as with sundering of the earth
Nor as with cleaving of the sea
Nor fierce foreshadowings of a birth
Nor flying dreams of death to be,
Nor loosening of a large world's girth
And quickening of the body of night,

And sound of thunder in men's ears And fire of lightning in men's sight, Fate, mother of desires and fears, Bore unto men the law of tears; But sudden, an unfathered flame,

And broken out of night, she shone, She, without body, without name,

In days forgotten and foregone ; And heaven rang round her as she came Like smitten cymbals, and lay bare; Clouds and great stars, thunders and

Shall the waves take pity on thee

Or the south-wind offer thee love? Wilt thou take the night for thy day Or the darkness for light on thy way

Till thou say in thine heart, Enough?

Behold, thou art over fair, thou art over wise:

The sweetness of spring in thine hair, and the light in thine eyes. The light of the spring in thine eyes, and the sound in thine ears;

Yet thine heart shall wax heavy with sighs and thine eyelids with tears. Wilt thou cover thine hair with gold; and with silver thy feet?

Hast thou taken the purple to fold thee, and made thy mouth sweet? Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate;

Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate.

For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain;

And the veil of thine head shall be grief; and the crown shall be pain.

THE DEATH OF MELEAGER

Meleager. Let your hands meet
Round the weight of my head,
Lift ye my feet

As the feet of the dead;

For the flesh of my body is molten, the limbs of it molten as lead.

Chorus. O thy luminous face,
Thine imperious eyes!

O the grief, O the grace,

As of day when it dies!

Who is this bending over thee, lord, with tears and suppression of sighs!

Meleager. Is a bride so fair?

Is a maid so meek?

With unchapleted hair,

With unfilleted cheek,

Atalanta, the pure among women, whose name is as blessing to speak.

Atalanta. I would that with feet,
Unsandalled, unshod,

Overbold, overfleet,

I had swum not nor trod

From Arcadia to Calydon, northward, a blast of the envy of God.

Meleager. Unto each man his fate; Unto each as he saith

In whose fingers the weight Of the world is as breath;

Yet I would that in clamor of battle mine hands had laid hold upon death.

Chorus. Not with cleaving of shields And their clash in thine ear, When the lord of fought fields Breaketh spearshaft from spear, Thou art broken, our lord, thou art broken, with travail and labor and fear.

Meleager. Would God he had found me
Beneath fresh boughs!
Would God he had bound me
Unawares in mine house,
With light in mine eyes and songs in my
lips, and a crown on my brows!

Chorus. Whence art thou sent from us?
Whither thy goal?

How art thou rent from us,
Thou that wert whole,

As with severing of eyelids and eyes, as with sundering of body and soul !

Meleager. My heart is within me

As an ash in the fire; Whosoever hath seen me,

Without lute, without lyre,

Shall sing of me grievous things, even

things that were ill to desire.

Chorus. Who shall raise thee

From the house of the dead?

Or what man praise thee

That thy praise may be said?

Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thine head!

Meleager. But thou, O mother,
That dreamer of dreams,
Wilt thou bring forth another
To feel the sun's beams

When I move among shadows a shadow, and wail by impassable streams?

Eneus. What thing wilt thou leave me
Now this thing is done?
A man wilt thou give me,
A son for my son,

For the light of mine eyes, the desire of my life, the desirable one?

Chorus. Thou wert glad above others,
Yea, fair beyond word;
Thou wert glad among mothers;