Lewis Morris

WILD flowers in spring were sweet to childish hands
As riches to the wretch possessing naught ;
And as the water-springs in desert lands
Are the pale victories of patient thought :…

THEY say the Lord of time and all the worlds,
Came to us once, a feeble, new-born child ;
All-wise, yet dumb ; weak, though omnipotent:
Surely a heaven-sent vision, for it tells…

ONLY eighteen winters old!
Lay her with a tender hand
On the delicate, ribbed sea-sand:
Stiff and cold; ay, stiff and cold.What she has been, who shall care?…

ALAS for me for that my love is dead !
Buried deep down, and may not rise again ;
Self- murdered, vanished, gone beyond recall,
And this is all my pain.'Tis not that she I loved is gone from me,…

WHEN I am dead and turned to dust,
Let men say what they will, I care not aught;
Let them say I was careless, indolent,
Wasted the precious hours in dreaming thought,…

LORD, the Giver of my days,
My heart is ready, my heart is ready;
I dare not hold my peace, nor pause,
For I am fain to sing Thy praise.I praise Thee not, with impious pride,…

On, if we had but eyes to see
The glory which around us lies,
To read the secrets of the earth,
And know the splendours of the skies ;And if we had but ears to hear…

O FAIR bird, singing in the woods,
To the rising and the setting sun,
Does ever any throb of pain
Thrill through thee ere thy song be done:…

ALAS for fame ! I saw a genius sit,
Draining full bumpers with a trembling hand,
And roll out rhapsodies of folly, lit
By soaring fancies hard to understand.…

OLD minster, when my years were few,
And life seemed endless to the boy;
Clear yet and vivid is the joy
With which I gazed and thought on you.Thin shaft and flower-wrought capital,…

COLD snowdrops which the shrinking new-born year
Sends like the dove from out the storm-tost ark ;
Sweet violets which may not tarry here
Beyond the earliest flutings of the lark ;Bright celandines which gild the tufted brake…

LOVE took me up, a naked, helpless child,
Love laid me sleeping on the tender breast,
Love gazed on me with saintly eyes and mild,
Love watched me as I lay in happy rest,…

THE PEAKS, and the starlit skies, the deeps of the fathomless seas,
Immanent is He in all, yet higher and deeper than these.The heart, and the mind, and the soul, the thoughts and the yearnings of Man,
Of His essence are one and all, and yet define it who can?The love of the Right, tho' cast down, the hate of victorious Ill,
All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficent Will.Oh, mystical secrets of Nature, great Universe undefined,…

HERE lay him down in peace to take his rest,
Who tired of singing ere the day was done.
A little time, a little, beneath the sun,
He tarried and gave forth his artless song;…

STAY, O sweet day, nor fleet so fast away
For now it is that life revives again,
As the red tyrant sinks beneath the hill ;
And now soft dews refresh the arid plain ;…

FAIR shines the beacon from its lonely rock,
Stable alone amid the unstable waves :
In vain the surge leaps with continual shock,
In vain around the wintry tempest raves,…

IF I were to answer you
As you would, my soul would soar
Like the lark from earth-born eyes,
Soar and hide in far-off skies,…

I SEE myself reflected in thine eyes,
The dainty mirrors set in golden frame
Of eyelash, quiver with a sweet surprise,
And most ingenuous shame.Like Eve, who hid her from the dread command…

As one who on a lonely bed of pain
Feels the soft hand he felt when he was young;
Or, who at eve, on some far Eastern plain,
Hears the old songs once by his mother sung:…

PEACE, moaning Sea; what tale have you to tell?
What mystic tidings, all unknown before?
Whether you break in thunder on the shore,
Or whisper like the voice within the shell,…

SOME men there be who can descry
No charm in earth or sea or sky,
Poor painful bigot souls, to whom
All sights and sounds recall the tomb,…

Two ships which meet upon the ocean waste,
And stay a little while, and interchange
Tidings from two strange lands, which lie beneath
Each its own heaven and particular stars,And fain would tarry; but the impatient surge…

ONE of the nightly hundreds who pass
Wearily, hopelessly, under the gas.But the old sad words had a strange new tone,
And the wild laugh seemed to sink to a moan.So that turning as one constrained to look,
The strange sight stifled the voice of rebuke :For I looked on a girl's face pure and fair,…

OH ! sometimes when the solemn organ rolls
Its stream of sound down gray historic aisles ;
Or the full, high-pitched struggling symphony
Pursues the fleeting melody in vain :…