Poems 1908-1911
Sonnet: "Oh Death will find me long before I tire"
Sonnet: "I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true
Success
Dust
Kindliness
Mummia
The Fish
Thoughts on the Shape of the Human Body
Flight
The Hill
The One Before the Last
The Jolly Company
The Life Beyond
Lines Written in the Belief That the Ancient Roman Festival of the Dead Was Called Ambarvalia
Dead Men's Love
Town and Country
Paralysis
Menelaus and Helen
Lust
Jealousy
Blue Evening
The Charm
Finding
Song
The Voice
Dining-Room Tea
The Goddess in the Wood
A Channel Passage
Victory
Day and Night
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Kindliness
When love has changed to kindliness --
Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press
So tight that Time's an old god's dream
Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff
Seven million years were not enough
To think on after, make it seem
Less than the breath of children playing,
A blasphemy scarce worth the saying,
A sorry jest, "When love has grown
To kindliness -- to kindliness!" . . .
And yet -- the best that either's known
Will change, and wither, and be less,
At last, than comfort, or its own
Remembrance. And when some caress
Tendered in habit (once a flame
All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame
Unworded, in the steady eyes
We'll have, -- that day, what shall we do?
Being so noble, kill the two
Who've reached their second-best? Being wise,
Break cleanly off, and get away.
Follow down other windier skies
New lures, alone? Or shall we stay,
Since this is all we've known, content
In the lean twilight of such day,
And not remember, not lament?
That time when all is over, and
Hand never flinches, brushing hand;
And blood lies quiet, for all you're near;
And it's but spoken words we hear,
Where trumpets sang; when the mere skies
Are stranger and nobler than your eyes;
And flesh is flesh, was flame before;
And infinite hungers leap no more
In the chance swaying of your dress;
And love has changed to kindliness.
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