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To My Excellent Lucasia, On Our Friendship

I did not live until this time
Crown'd my felicity,
When I could say without a crime,
I am not thine, but thee.

This carcass breath'd, and walkt, and slept,
So that the world believe'd
There was a soul the motions kept;
But they were all deceiv'd.

For as a watch by art is wound
To motion, such was mine:
But never had Orinda found
A soul till she found thine;

Which now inspires, cures and supplies,
And guides my darkened breast:
For thou art all that I can prize,
My joy, my life, my rest.

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To Music

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps:
silence of paintings. You language where all language
ends. You time
standing vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.

Feelings for whom? O you the transformation
of feelings into what?--: into audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You heart-space
grown out of us. The deepest space in us,
which, rising above us, forces its way out,--
holy departure:
when the innermost point in us stands
outside, as the most practiced distance, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
boundless,

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To Mr. Lawrence

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius reinspire
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

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To Mother

In the old Strauss waltz for the first time
We had listened to your quiet call,
Since then all the living things are alien
And the knocking of the clock consoles.

We, like you, are gladly greeting sunsets,
And are drunk on nearness of the end.
All, with which on better nights we're wealthy
Is put in the hearts by your own hand.

Bowing to a child's dreams with no tire.
(Only crescent looked in them indeed
Without you)! You have led your kids past

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To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture

This faint resemblance of thy charms,
(Though strong as mortal art could give,)
My constant heart of fear disarms,
Revives my hopes, and bids me live.

Here, I can trace the locks of gold
Which round thy snowy forehead wave;
The cheeks which sprung from Beauty's mould,
The lips, which made me Beauty's slave.

Here I can trace---ah, no! that eye,
Whose azure floats in liquid fire,
Must all the painter's art defy,
And bid him from the task retire.

Here, I behold its beauteous hue;
But where's the beam so sweetly straying,

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To M

IF in the summer of thy bright regard
For one brief season these poor Rhymes shall live
I ask no more, nor think my fate too hard
If other eyes but wintry looks should give;
Nor will I grieve though what I here have writ
O’er burdened Time should drop among the ways,
And to the unremembering dust commit
Beyond the praise and blame of other days:
The song doth pass, but I who sing, remain,
I pluck from Death’s own heart a life more deep,
And as the Spring, that dies not, in her train

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To Lucasta, Going Beyond the Seas

If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone,
You or I were alone, -
Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
Pity from blust'ring wind or swallowing wave.

But I'll not sigh one blast or gale
To swell my sail,
Or pay a tear to 'suage
The foaming blue god's rage;
For whether he will let me pass
Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.

Though seas and land betwixt us both,
Our faith and troth,
Like separated souls,
All time and space controls:
Above the highest sphere we meet

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To Lucasta on Going to the War - For the Fourth Time

It doesn’t matter what’s the cause,
What wrong they say we’re righting,
A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,
When we’re to do the fighting!
And since we lads are proud and true,
What else remains to do?
Lucasta, when to France your man
Returns his fourth time, hating war,
Yet laughs as calmly as he can
And flings an oath, but says no more,
That is not courage, that’s not fear—
Lucasta he’s a Fusilier,
And his pride sends him here.

Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started

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To Life

O life with the sad seared face,
   I weary of seeing thee,
And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,
   And thy too-forced pleasantry!

   I know what thou would'st tell
   Of Death, Time, Destiny -
I have known it long, and know, too, well
   What it all means for me.

   But canst thou not array
   Thyself in rare disguise,
And feign like truth, for one mad day,
   That Earth is Paradise?

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To Lallie Outside the British Museum.

UP those Museum steps you came,
And straightway all my blood was flame,
O Lallie, Lallie !
The world (I had been feeling low)
In one short moment's space did grow
A happy valley.
There was a friend, my friend, with you;
A meagre dame in peacock blue
Apparelled quaintly:
This poet-heart went pit-a-pat;
I bowed and smiled and raised my hat;
You nodded--faintly.
My heart was full as full could be;
You had not got a word for me,

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