So, Beauty, dost thou run with tragic life;
So, with the curious world’s caress enchanted,
Even of ill things thine ecstasy dost make;
Yet at the touch of fear and vital strife
The splendours thy young innocency forsake,
And with thy foster-mother’s woe thou art haunted.

THE PHYSICIAN

She comes when I am grieving and doth say,
“Child, here is that shall drive your grief away.” 
When I am hopeless, kisses me and stirs
My breast with the strong lively courage of hers. 
Proud—­she will humble me with but a word,
Or with mild mockery at my folly gird;
Fickle—­she holds me with her loyal eyes;
Remorseful—­tells of neighbouring Paradise;
Envious—­“Be not so mad, so mad,” she saith,
“Envied and envier both race with Death”
She my good Angel is:  and who is she?—­
The soul’s divine Physician, Memory.

VISION AND ECHO

I have seen that which sweeter is
  Than happy dreams come true. 
I have heard that which echo is
  Of speech past all I ever knew. 
Vision and echo, come again,
Nor let me grieve in easeless pain!

It was a hill I saw, that rose
  Like smoke over the street,
Whose greening rampires were upreared
  Suddenly almost at my feet;
And tall trees nodded tremblingly
Making the plain day visionary.

But ah, the song, the song I heard
  And grieve to hear no more! 
It was not angel-voice, nor child’s
  Singing alone and happy, nor
Note of the wise prophetic thrush
As lonely in the leafless bush.

It was not these, and yet I knew
  That song; but now, alas,
My unpurged ears prove all too gross
  To keep the nameless air that was
And is not; and my eyes forget
The vision that I follow yet.

Yet though forgetful I did see. 
  And heard, but cannot tell,
And on my forehead felt an air
  Unearthly, on my heart a spell. 
I have seen that which deathless is,
And heard—­what I for ever miss!

REVISITATION

It is here—­the lime-tree in the garden path,
The lilac by the wall, the ivied wall
That was so high, the heavy, close-leaved creeper,
The harsh gate jarring on its hinges still,
The echoing clean flags—­all
The same, the same, and never more the same.

That mound was once a hill,
The old lime-tree a forest (now as small
As the poor lilac by the ivied wall),
And this neglected narrow greenery
A wilderness, and I its king and keeper;
Lying upon the grass I saw the sky
And all its clouds:  the garden edged the sky.

The harsh gate jars upon its hinges still.

UNPARDONED

Gentle as the air that kisses
The splendid and ignoble with one breath,
Gentle as obliterating Death—­
Though you be gentler yet,
In days when the old, old things begin to fret
The backward-looking consciousness,
Will you forget? 
Or if remembering, will you forgive?