The House Immortal

He who would build a house that all may see,
   In Truth should dig the deep foundation ways,
   And lay the corner-stone of Love, and raise
The walls of Steadfastness; then tenderly
Bedeck the halls with Song and Poesy,
   And keep Contentment on the hearth ablaze:
   The windows Hope, the ascending gables Praise,
And over all the roof of Charity.
   Then let the tempests rage, the flames consume;
   Time's self were impotent to seal the doom
Of such a house, where wanderers may find,
   Blazoned in gold above the welcoming portal:
   "Who enters her leaves Hopelessness behind."
   The true home is the heart, and hence immortal.

 

Sir William Thomson's Aërolith

Gray, moss-grown fragment of a shattered world,
   Have you at last found peaceful days and rest?
   While lying here upon the meadow's breast,
With tender tendrils round about you curled,
Do you forget the days and ways when, whirled
   Through awful space, you speeded in your quest
   For any shining distant sphere where best
Life's wearied wings might be forever furled?
If, as one says, within your cold embrace
   There sleeps a life long nursed in unseen skies,
      When your dull weight has turned to fertile earth,
Will there sprig forth a flower with star-born face,
   Or strange-shaped butterfly with crystal eyes—
      A dazzling splendor of ephemeral mirth?

 

Swinburne

Eagle of song, toward your unflinching flight
   I turn the longing of devoted gaze.
   From this dark terrene coign I catch the rays
That blinding fall from your supernal height.
Your wings are rhythm, and your flight is light:
   Beyond all thought or dream of perfect praise,
   You rise to heaven through the uncertain ways
That lie along the borderlands of night.
Teach me the secret of your pulsing breast,
   And all its moving mysteries unfold,
      And how the magic of your might is won:
For now you make youth's tender heart your nest,
   And now you fiercely soar, exultant, bold,
      And gaze unblinded on the equal sun

 

Poetry in Anthologies