“I would I were alive again to kiss the fingers of the rain.”

“I would I were alive againTo kiss the fingers of the rain,To drink into my eyes the shineOf every slanting silver line,To catch the freshened, fragrant breezeFrom drenched and dripping apple-trees.For soon the shower will be done,And then the broad face of the sunWill laugh above the rain-soaked earthUntil the world with answering mirthShakes joyously, and each round dropRolls twinkling, from its grass-blade top.”

“I would blossom if I were a rose.”

“Love is Not AllLove is not all: it is not meat nor drinkNor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would.”

“Time Does Not Bring ReliefTime does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear To go,—so with his memory they brim. And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, “There is no memory of him here!” And so stand stricken, so remembering him.”

“Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely. She that knew not where to hide,Is gone again like a jeweled fish from the hand, Is lost on every side.Mute,mute, I make way to the garden, Thither where she last was seen;The heavy foot of the frost is on the flags there, Where her light step has been. Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely,Gone again on every side,Lost again like a shining fish from the hand Into the shadowy tide.”

“We were so wholly one I had not thoughtThat we could die apart. I had not thoughtThat I could move,—and you be stiff and still!That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb!I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woofIn some firm fabric, woven in and out;Your golden filaments in fair designAcross my duller fibre.”