The night has a thousand eyes – Francis William Bourdillon

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

Oh, when I was in love with you – A.E. Houseman

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they’ll say that I
Am quite myself again.

Stars – Robert Frost

How countlessly they congregate
O’er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!—

As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,—

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

With rue my heart is laden – A.E. Houseman

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

I heard a bird at dawn -James Stephens

I heard a bird at dawn
Singing sweetly on a tree,
That the dew was on the lawn,
And the wind was on the lea;
But I didn’t listen to him,
For he didn’t sing to me.

I didn’t listen to him,
For he didn’t sing to me
That the dew was on the lawn
And the wind was on the lea;
I was singing at the time
Just as prettily as he.

I was singing all the time,
Just a prettily as he,
About the dew upon the lawn
And the wind upon the lea;
So I didn’t listen to him
As he sang upon a tree.

The Secret – Eiluned Lewis

There is no treasure
in all the world
worth one baby
who, washed and curled,
her bath-time over,
her day before her,
kicks and crows
while her parents adore her.

Her Father reflects
as he watches her face
what a wonderful thing
is the human race.
Her Mother avers
if there’s aught so sweet
as her daughters hands
’tis her daughters feet/

But the baby who talks
to her feet and hands
smiles to herself
for she understands
there’s more to be learnt
than you’d suppose
from twice five fingers
and twice five toes.
She knows it, she knows it,
and chuckles again,
but just what it is
she will never explain.

The End of the Episode – Thomas Hardy

Indulge no more may we
In this sweet-bitter pastime:
The love-light shines the last time
Between you, Dear, and me.

There shall remain no trace
Of what so closely tied us,
And blank as ere love eyed us
Will be our meeting-place.

The flowers and thymy air,
Will they now miss our coming?
The dumbles thin their humming
To find we haunt not there?

Though fervent was our vow,
Though ruddily ran our pleasure,
Bliss has fulfilled its measure,
And sees its sentence now.

Ache deep; but make no moans:
Smile out; but stilly suffer:
The paths of love are rougher
Than thoroughfares of stones.

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven – W.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

(corrected: thank you, readers)

There Will Come Soft Rains – Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Beauty is but a painted hell – John Donne

Beauty is but a painted hell:
Aye me, aye me,
She wounds them that admire it,
She kills them that desire it.
Give her pride but fuel,
No fire is more cruel.

Pity from ev’ry heart is fled,
Aye me, aye me;
Since false desire could borrow
Tears of dissembled sorrow,
Constant vows turn truthless,
Love cruel, Beauty ruthless.

Sorrow can laugh, and Fury sing,
Aye me, aye me;
My raving griefs discover
I liv’d too true a lover:
The first step to madness
Is the excesse of sadness.