Yes, I would that, less generous, he would oppress,
     He would chain me, upbraid me, burn deep brands for hate,
     Than with this mask of freedom and gorgeousness
     Bespangle my slavery, mock my strange fate. 
     Would, would, would, O my lover, he knew—­dared debar
     Thy coming, and earn curse of Shemselnihar!

     A roar through the tall twin elm-trees

     A roar thro’ the tall twin elm-trees
     The mustering storm betrayed: 
     The South-wind seized the willow
     That over the water swayed.

     Then fell the steady deluge
     In which I strove to doze,
     Hearing all night at my window
     The knock of the winter rose.

     The rainy rose of winter! 
     An outcast it must pine. 
     And from thy bosom outcast
     Am I, dear lady mine.

     When I would image

     When I would image her features,
     Comes up a shrouded head: 
     I touch the outlines, shrinking;
     She seems of the wandering dead.

     But when love asks for nothing,
     And lies on his bed of snow,
     The face slips under my eyelids,
     All in its living glow.

     Like a dark cathedral city,
     Whose spires, and domes, and towers
     Quiver in violet lightnings,
     My soul basks on for hours.

     The spirit of Shakespeare

     Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsoured
     He knew thy sons.  He probed from hell to hell
     Of human passions, but of love deflowered
     His wisdom was not, for he knew thee well. 
     Thence came the honeyed corner at his lips,
     The conquering smile wherein his spirit sails
     Calm as the God who the white sea-wave whips,
     Yet full of speech and intershifting tales,
     Close mirrors of us:  thence had he the laugh
     We feel is thine:  broad as ten thousand beeves
     At pasture! thence thy songs, that winnow chaff
     From grain, bid sick Philosophy’s last leaves
     Whirl, if they have no response—­they enforced
     To fatten Earth when from her soul divorced.

     Continued

     How smiles he at a generation ranked
     In gloomy noddings over life!  They pass. 
     Not he to feed upon a breast unthanked,
     Or eye a beauteous face in a cracked glass. 
     But he can spy that little twist of brain
     Which moved some weighty leader of the blind,
     Unwitting ’twas the goad of personal pain,
     To view in curst eclipse our Mother’s mind,
     And show us of some rigid harridan
     The wretched bondmen till the end of time. 
     O lived the Master now to paint us Man,
     That little twist of brain would ring a chime
     Of whence it came and what it caused, to start
     Thunders of laughter, clearing air and heart.