Arthur Symons

There are some hours when I seem so indifferent; all things
To an indifferent greyness, like that grey of the sky;
Always at evening-ends, on grey days; and I know not why,
But life, and art, and love, and death, are the shade of a ...

If I think of your soul,
I see Your body's beauty; and then I pray to your body again,
And your soul answers me
So to possess you whole,

As a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain,
So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain,
Will not leave me; all things leave me -    You remain
Other thoughts may come and go,

But to have lain upon the grass One perfect day, one perfect hour, Beholding all things mortal pass Into the quiet of green grass; But to have lain and loved the sun, Under the shadow of the trees, To have been found in unison, Once only, with the...

That day a fire was in my blood;
I could have sung: joy wrapt me round;
The men I met seemed all so good,
I scarcely knew I trod the ground

O, if the world I make With these eyes be a dream And Love, that is life, but seem To choose a shade from a shade,
Then let me wake
I have loved, not Love, but a pale,
Mortal woman, and made The whole world for her sake;

In the twilight of the year,
Here, about these twilight ways,
When the grey moth night drew near,
Fluttering on a faint flying,

The boats go out and the boats come
Under the wintry sky;
And the rain and foam are white in the wind,
And the white gulls cry

I broider the world upon a loom,
I broider with dreams my tapestry;
Here in a little lonely room I am master of earth and sea,
And the planets come to me

The feverish room and that white bed,
The tumbled skirts upon a chair,
The novel flung half-open,
Hat, hair-pins, puffs, and paints are spread;

SE you are fair as souls of the lost are fair,
And your eyelids laugh with desire, and your laughing feet Are winged with desire, and your hands are wanton, and sweet Is the promise of love in your lips, and the rose in your hair Sweet, unfad...

I have laid sorrow to sleep;
Love sleeps
She who oft made me weep Now weeps
I loved, and have forgot,

My little slave
Wouldst thou escape me
Only in the grave, be poison to thee, honey-sweet,
And, my poison having tasted,

When your eyes opened to mine eyes,
Without desire, without surprise,
I knew your soul awoke to sec All, dreams foretold, but could not be,
Yet loving love, not loving me

Twitched strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums,
Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting:
And now the stealthy dancer comes Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling;
Smiling between her painted lids a smile,

Fair faces come again,
As at sunsetting The Stars without number;
Or as dreams dreamed in vain To a heart forgetting Come back with slumber
Love covered both mine eyes In a sweet twilight With his two hands folded;