“Where are the songs I used to know,Where are the notes I used to sing?I have forgotten everythingI used to know so long ago.("The Key-Note")”
“Ah me, but where are now the songs I sangWhen life was sweet because you call’d them sweet?”
“Yet come to me in dreams, that I may liveMy very life again though cold in death;Come back to me in dreams, that I may givePulse for pulse, breath for breath:Speak low, lean low,As long ago, my love, how long ago”
“When I Am Dead, My DearestWhen I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me;Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress-tree:Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet;And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain;I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on, as if in pain:And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set,Haply I may remember, And haply may forget.”
“Then a hundred sad voices lifted a wail,And a hundred glad voices piped on the gale:'Time is short, life is short,' they took up the tale: 'Life is sweet, love is sweet, use to-day while you may;Love is sweet, and to-morrow may fail; Love is sweet, use to-day.”
“A Robin said: The Spring will never come,And I shall never care to build again.A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,My sap will never stir for sun or rain.The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,I neither care to wax nor care to wane.The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main. —When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest,And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.Grey hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with mightClothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,Dimpled his blue, yet thirsted evermore.”
“O cousin Kate, my love was true,Your love was writ in sand:If he had fooled not me but you,If you had stood where i stand,He'd not have won me with his love,Nor bought me with his land;I would have spit into his faceAnd not have taken his hand.Yet I have a gift you have not got,And seem not like to get:For all your clothes and wedding-ringI've little doubt you fret.My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,Cling closer, closer yet:Your father would give lands for oneto wear his coronet”