Gay

  O faithful eyes, day after day as I see and how
you--unswerving faithful and beautiful--going about your
ordinary work unnoticed,
  I have noticed--I do not forget you.
  I know the truth the tenderness the courage, I know
the longings hidden quiet there.
  Go right on. Have good faith yet--keep that your
unseen treasure untainted.
  Many shall bless you. To many yet, though no word
be spoken, your face shall shine as a lamp.
  It shall be remembered, and that which you have

I hate you with a necessary hate.
First, I sought patience: passionate was she:
My patience turned in very scorn of me,
That I should dare forgive a sin so great,
As this, through which I sit disconsolate;
Mourning for that live soul, I used to see;
Soul of a saint, whose friend I used to be:
Till you came by! a cold, corrupting, fate.

Why come you now? You, whom I cannot cease
With pure and perfect hate to hate? Go, ring
The death-bell with a deep, triumphant toll!
Say you, my friend sits by me still? Ah, peace!

Dark Angel, with thine aching lust
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtile violence!

Because of thee, no thought, no thing,
Abides for me undesecrate:
Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
Who never reachest me too late!

When music sounds, then changest thou
Its silvery to a sultry fire:
Nor will thine envious heart allow
Delight untortured by desire.

Through thee, the gracious Muses turn
To Furies, O mine Enemy!
And all the things of beauty burn
With flames of evil ecstasy.

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place ;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers

CHILD, the hours that breathe around thee
  Know thee most divinely fair ;
In its love the last enwound thee,
  And the next shall take thy hair

Backward from thy forehead's whiteness
  While upon thy lips it fold
Kisses, love-endued with lightness
  Lest thou guess what none have told.

Though thou seest not nor knowest,
  Love about thee, day by day,
Dwells and, whereso'er thou goest,
  Walks beside thee all the way ;

Tenderly his glances greet thee,