Selected Poems

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the faultwas, had I not been made of common clayI had climbed the higher heights unclimbedyet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.From the wildness of my wasted passion I hadstruck a better, clearer song,Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battledwith some Hydra-headed wrong.Had my lips been smitten into music by thekisses that but made them bleed,You had walked with Bice and the angels onthat verdant and enamelled mead.I had trod the road which Dante treading sawthe suns of seven circles shine,Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening,as they opened to the Florentine.And the mighty nations would have crownedme, who am crownless now and without name,And some orient dawn had found me kneelingon the threshold of the House of Fame.