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By The Babe Unborn
If trees were tall and grasses short, As in some crazy tale, If here and there a sea were blue Beyond the breaking pale, If a fixed fire hu…
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The World's Lover
My eyes are full of lonely mirth: Reeling with want and worn with scars, For pride of every stone on earth, I shake my spear at all the sta…
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A Chord Of Colour
My Lady clad herself in grey, That caught and clung about her throat; Then all the long grey winter day On me a living splendour smote; And…
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The Unpardonable Sin
I do not cry, beloved, neither curse. Silence and strength, these two at least are good. He gave me sun and stars and ought He could, But n…
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A Novelty
Why should I care for the Ages Because they are old and grey? To me, like sudden laughter, The stars are fresh and gay; The world is a dari…
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The Donkey
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born; With monstrous he…
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The Beatific Vision
Through what fierce incarnations, furled In fire and darkness, did I go, Ere I was worthy in the world To see a dandelion grow? Well, if in…
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The Hope Of The Streets
The still sweet meadows shimmered: and I stood And cursed them, bloom of hedge and bird of tree, And bright and high beyond the hunch-backe…
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Ecclesiastes
There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey, Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth. There is one blasphemy: for death to pray, For God alone…
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The Fish
Dark the sea was: but I saw him, One great head with goggle eyes, Like a diabolic cherub Flying in those fallen skies. I have heard the hoa…
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Gold Leaves
Lo! I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold; Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out The year and I are old. In youth I sought the p…
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A Man And His Image
All day the nations climb and crawl and pray In one long pilgrimage to one white shrine, Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace,…
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The Mariner
The violet scent is sacred Like dreams of angels bright; The hawthorn smells of passion Told in a moonless night. But the smell is in my no…
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The Triumph Of Man
I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes, I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise, And slowly pass the dismal grinning days, Monkeying e…
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Cyclopean
A mountainous and mystic brute No rein can curb, no arrow shoot, Upon whose domed deformed back I sweep the planets scorching track. Old is…
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Joseph
If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams Of bliss and blasphemy came true, If skies were green and snow were gold, And you loved me as I…
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Modern Elfland
I Cut a staff in a churchyard copse, I clad myself in ragged things, I set a feather in my cap That fell out of an angel's wings. I filled…
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Eternities
I cannot count the pebbles in the brook. Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head, Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read, Writ…
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A Christmas Carol
The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child la…
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Alone
Blessings there are of cradle and of clan, Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands; But never blessing full of lives and lands,…
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King's Cross Station
This circled cosmos whereof man is god Has suns and stars of green and gold and red, And cloudlands of great smoke, that range o'er range F…
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The Human Tree
Many have Earth's lovers been, Tried in seas and wars, I ween; Yet the mightiest have I seen: Yea, the best saw I. One that in a field alon…
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To Them That Mourn
(W.E.G., May 1898) Lift up your heads: in life, in death, God knoweth his head was high. Quit we the coward's broken breath Who watched a s…
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The Outlaw
Priest, is any song-bird stricken? Is one leaf less on the tree? Is this wine less red and royal That the hangman waits for me? He upon you…
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Behind
I saw an old man like a child, His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild, Who turned for ever, and might not stop, Round and round like an…
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The End Of Fear
Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon, Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed, Yet I go singing through that land opp…
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The Holy Of Holies
'Elder father, though thine eyes Shine with hoary mysteries, Canst thou tell what in the heart Of a cowslip blossom lies? 'Smaller than all…
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The Mirror Of Madmen
I dreamed a dream of heaven, white as frost, The splendid stillness of a living host; Vast choirs of upturned faces, line o'er line. Then m…
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The Desecraters
Witness all: that unrepenting, Feathers flying, music high, I go down to death unshaken By your mean philosophy. For your wages, take my bo…
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An Alliance
This is the weird of a world-old folk, That not till the last link breaks, Not till the night is blackest, The blood of Hengist wakes. When…
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The Ancient Of Days
A child sits in a sunny place, Too happy for a smile, And plays through one long holiday With balls to roll and pile; A painted wind-mill b…
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The Last Masquerade
A wan new garment of young green Touched, as you turned your soft brown hair And in me surged the strangest prayer Ever in lover's heart ha…
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The Earth's Shame
Name not his deed: in shuddering and in haste We dragged him darkly o'er the windy fell: That night there was a gibbet in the waste, And a…
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Vanity
A wan sky greener than the lawn, A wan lawn paler than the sky. She gave a flower into my hand, And all the hours of eve went by. Who knows…
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The Lamp Post
Laugh your best, O blazoned forests, Me ye shall not shift or shame With your beauty: here among you Man hath set his spear of flame. Lamp…
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The Pessimist
You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know. You have weighed…
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A Fairy Tale
All things grew upwards, foul and fair: The great trees fought and beat the air With monstrous wings that would have flown; But the old ear…
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A Portrait
Fair faces crowd on Christmas night Like seven suns a-row, But all beyond is the wolfish wind And the crafty feet of the snow. But through…
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Femina Contra Mundum
The sun was black with judgment, and the moon Blood: but between I saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at least The grass is green. 'There was…
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To A Certain Nation
We will not let thee be, for thou art ours. We thank thee still, though thou forget these things, For that hour's sake when thou didst wake…
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The Praise Of Dust
'What of vile dust?' the preacher said. Methought the whole world woke, The dead stone lived beneath my foot, And my whole body spoke. 'You…
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The Ballad Of The Battle Of Gibeon
Five kings rule o'er the Amorite, Mighty as fear and old as night; Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel, Waxed they merry and fat and cr…
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'Vulgarised'
All round they murmur, 'O profane, Keep thy heart's secret hid as gold'; But I, by God, would sooner be Some knight in shattering wars of o…
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The Ballad Of God-Makers
A bird flew out at the break of day From the nest where it had curled, And ere the eve the bird had set Fear on the kings of the world. The…
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At Night
How many million stars there be, That only God hath numberéd; But this one only chosen for me In time before her face was fled. Shall not o…
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Art Colours
On must we go: we search dead leaves, We chase the sunset's saddest flames, The nameless hues that o'er and o'er In lawless wedding lost th…
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The Two Women
Lo! very fair is she who knows the ways Of joy: in pleasure's mocking wisdom old, The eyes that might be cold to flattery, kind; The hair t…
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The Wild Knight
God grows impatient, and His wine is poured, His bread is broken. Rushes forward. REDFEATHER leaps between. Stand away, great fool, There i…