Robert Nichols

All the loud winds were in the garden wood,
All shadows joyfuller than lissom
Doubled in chasing, all exultant
That ever flung fierce mist and eddying

I must remember now how once I woke To find the harsh lamplight stream upon her bed,
The ceiling tremble in its giddy smoke,
And on the wall the agile spider spread,
To hear the reverberate vault of silence shake Beneath the hollow ...

O Nightingale my
How sad thou art
How heavy is thy wing,
Desperately whirrëd that thy throat may

upon seeing a portrait of
Something moves in his dust,
Flame sleeps beneath the crust;
O whence had he those

As I walk the misty hill All is languid, fogged, and still; Not a note of any bird Nor any motion's hint is heard, Save from soaking thickets round Trickle or water's rushing sound, And from ghostly trees the drip Of runnel dews or whispering slip...

Was there love once
I have forgotten her
Was there grief once
Grief yet is mine

Evenstar, still
If this twilight thou dost
On a more unhappy head,
On tears lonelier than mine,

1
In the Grass:
Halt by the
In my tired, helpless bodyI feel my sunk heart ache;

Nearer and ever nearer
My body, tired but tense,
Hovers 'twixt vague pleasure And tremulous confidence
Arms to have and to use them        And a soul to be made Worthy, if not worthy;

Not a sign of life we
In any square close-shuttered
That flanks the road we amble
Toward far trenches through the town

For the last time, maybe, upon the knollI stand
The eve is golden, languid, sad
Day like a tragic actor plays his
To the last whispered word and falls gold-clad

How beautiful it is to wake at night, When over all there reigns the ultimate spell Of complete silence, darkness absolute, To feel the world, tilted on axle-tree, In slow gyration, with no sensible sound, Unless to ears of unimagined beings, Resi...