Oh for a poet—for a beacon bright 
To rift this changless glimmer of dead gray; 
To spirit back the Muses, long astray, 
And flush Parnassus with a newer light; 
To put these little sonnet-men to flight
Who fashion, in a shrewd mechanic way,... (Read full poem)

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
   That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
   Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
   And such a street (so are the papers... (Read full poem)

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,
   Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
   Than small white single poppies,—I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
   I turn my troubled... (Read full poem)

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
   And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
   And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
   And... (Read full poem)

Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer
of... (Read full poem)

Seeing you have not come with me, nor spent 
This day's suggestive beauty as we ought, 
I have gone forth alone and been content 
To make you mistress only of my thought. 
And I have blessed the fate that was so kind 
In my life's agitations... (Read full poem)

Why should you be astonished that my heart, 
Plunged for so long in darkness and in dearth, 
Should be revived by you, and stir and start 
As by warm April now, reviving Earth? 
I am the field of undulating grass 
And you the gentle perfumed... (Read full poem)

"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce, 
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet. 
Through all the flimsy things we see at once 
As easily as through a Naples bonnet- 
Trash of all trash!- how can a lady don it? 
Yet heavier far than your... (Read full poem)

Oh, love of woman, you are known to be 
A passion sent to plague the hearts of men; 
For every one you bring felicity 
Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness to ten. 
I have been oft where human life sold cheap 
And seen men's brains spilled out... (Read full poem)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, 
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain 
Under my head till morning; but the rain 
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh 
Upon the glass and listen for reply, 
And in my heart there stirs... (Read full poem)

Not that I always struck the proper mean 
Of what mankind must give for what they gain, 
But, when I think of those whom dull routine 
And the pursuit of cheerless toil enchain, 
Who from their desk-chairs seeing a summer cloud 
Race through... (Read full poem)

Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed), 
Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue 
Look the leftovers of mankind that rest, 
Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you. 
War has its horrors, but has this of good -- 
That its... (Read full poem)

A splendor, flamelike, born to be pursued, 
With palms extent for amorous charity 
And eyes incensed with love for all they see, 
A wonder more to be adored than wooed, 
On whom the grace of conscious womanhood 
Adorning every little thing she... (Read full poem)