IX

To W. R.

MADAM Life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:

She's the tenant of the room,
He's the ruffian on the stair.

You shall see her as a friend,

You shall bilk him once and twice;

But he'll trap you in the end,

And he'll stick you for her price.

With his kneebones at your chest,
And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason-plead-protest!
Clutching at her petticoat;

But she's heard it all before,

Well she knows you've had your fun,

Gingerly she gains the door,

And your little job is done.

1877

X

THE sea is full of wandering foam,
The sky of driving cloud;

My restless thoughts among them roam

The night is dark and loud.

Where are the hours that came to me

So beautiful and bright?

A wild wind shakes the wilder sea

O, dark and loud's the night!

XI

To W. R.

THICK is the darkness-
Sunward, O, sunward!

Rough is the highway—
Onward, still onward!

Dawn harbours surely

East of the shadows.

Facing us somewhere

Spread the sweet meadows.

Upward and forward!

Time will restore us :

Light is above us,

Rest is before us.

1876

XII

To me at my fifth-floor window
The chimney-pots in rows

Are sets of pipes pandean

For every wind that blows;

And the smoke that whirls and eddies In a thousand times and keys

Is really a visible music

Set to my reveries.

O monstrous pipes, melodious
With fitful tune and dream,

The clouds are your only audience,
Her thought is your only theme!

I

XIII

BRING her again, O western wind,

Over the western sea :

Gentle and good and fair and kind, Bring her again to me!

Not that her fancy holds me dear, Not that a hope may be:

Only that I may know her near,

Wind of the western sea.