“I Travel As A Phantom Now”

I TRAVEL as a phantom now, For people do not wish to see In flesh and blood so bare a bough As Nature makes of me.

And thus I visit bodiless Strange gloomy households often at odds, And wonder if Man’s consciousness Was a mistake of God’s.

And next I meet you, and I pause, And think that if mistake it were, As some have said, O then it was One that I well can bear!

1915.

LINES TO A MOVEMENT IN MOZART’S E-FLAT SYMPHONY

SHOW me again the time When in the Junetide’s prime We flew by meads and mountains northerly!— Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness, Love lures life on.

Show me again the day When from the sandy bay We looked together upon the pestered sea!— Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking, Love lures life on.

Show me again the hour When by the pinnacled tower We eyed each other and feared futurity!— Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings, Love lures life on.

Show me again just this: The moment of that kiss Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree!— Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness, Love lures life on.

Begun November 1898.