Love's Astrology
I know not if they erred
Who thought to see
The tale of all the times to be,
Star-character'd;
I know not, neither care,
If fools or knaves they were.
But this I know: last night
On me there shone
Two stars
that made all stars look wan
And shamèd quite,
Wherefrom the soul of me
Divined her destiny.
poem by William Watson
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The Flight of Youth
Youth! ere thou be flown away.
Surely one last boon to-day
Thou'lt bestow-
One last light of rapture give,
Rich and lordly fugitive!
Ere thou go.
What, thou canst not? What, all spent?
All thy spells of ravishment
Pow'rless now?
Gone thy magic out of date?
Gone, all gone that made thee great?-
Follow thou!
poem by William Watson
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Art Maxims
Often ornateness
Goes with greatness;
Oftener felicity
Comes of simplicity.
Talent that's cheapest
Affects singularity.
Thoughts that dive deepest
Rise radiant in clarity.
Life is rough:
Sing smoothly, O Bard.
Enough, enough,
To have _found_ life hard.
No record Art keeps
Of her travail and throes.
There is toil on the steeps,--
On the summits, repose.
poem by William Watson
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Mensis Lacrimarum
March, that comes roaring, maned, with rampant paws,
And bleatingly withdraws;
March,--'tis the year's fantastic nondescript,
That, born when frost hath nipped
The shivering fields, or tempest scarred the hills,
Dies crowned with daffodils.
The month of the renewal of the earth
By mingled death and birth:
But, England! in this latest of thy years
Call it--the Month of Tears.
poem by William Watson
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Changed Voices
Last night the seawind was to me
A metaphor of liberty,
And every wave along the beach
A starlit music seemed to be.
To-day the seawind is to me
A fettered soul that would be free,
And dumbly striving after speech
The tides yearn landward painfully.
To-morrow how shall sound for me
The changing voice of wind and sea?
What tidings shall be borne of each?
What rumour of what mystery?
poem by William Watson
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The Eternal Search
MY little maiden two years old, just able
To tower full half a head above the table,
With inquisition keen must needs explore
Whatever in my dwelling hath a door,
Whatever is behind a curtain hid,
Or lurks, a rich enigma, 'neath a lid.
So soon is the supreme desire confessed,
To probe the unknown! So soon begins the quest,
That never ends until asunder fall
The locks and bolts of the Last Door of All.
poem by William Watson
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The Fugitive Ideal
As some most pure and noble face,
Seen in the thronged and hurrying street,
Sheds o'er the world a sudden grace,
A flying odour sweet,
Then, passing, leaves the cheated sense
Baulked with a phantom excellence;
So, on our soul the visions rise
Of that fair life we never led:
They flash a splendour past our eyes,
We start, and they are fled:
They pass, and leave us with blank gaze,
Resigned to our ignoble days.
poem by William Watson
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To A Friend: Chafing At Enforced Idleness From Interrupted Health
Soon may the edict lapse, that on you lays
This dire compulsion of infertile days,
This hardest penal toil, reluctant rest!
Meanwhile I count you eminently blest,
Happy from labours heretofore well done,
Happy in tasks auspiciously begun.
For they are blest that have not much to rue--
That have not oft mis-heard the prompter's cue,
Stammered and stumbled and the wrong parts played,
And life a Tragedy of Errors made.
poem by William Watson
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Prelude
The mighty poets from their flowing store
Dispense like casual alms the careless ore;
Through throngs of men their lonely way they go,
Let fall their costly thoughts, nor seem to know.-
Not mine the rich and showering hand, that strews
The facile largess of a stintless Muse.
A fitful presence, seldom tarrying long,
Capriciously she touches me to song-
Then leaves me to lament her flight in vain,
And wonder will she ever come again.
poem by William Watson
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Liberty Rejected
About this heart thou hast
Thy chains made fast,
And think'st thou I would be
Therefrom set free,
And forth unbound be cast?
The ocean would as soon
Entreat the moon
Unsay the magic verse
That seals him hers
From silver noon to noon.
She stooped her pearly head
Seaward, and said:
'Would'st thou I gave to thee
Thy liberty,
In Time's youth forfeited?'
And from his inmost hold
The answer rolled:
[...] Read more
poem by William Watson
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