From the Book - First edition.
What thing is this that, built of salt and lime
This beast that rends me in the sight of all
No lack of counsel from the shrewd and wise
Nay, learned doctor, these fine leeches fresh
Of all that ever in extreme disease
Since I cannot persuade you from this mood
Night is my sister, and how deep in love
Yet in an hour to come, disdainful dust
When you are dead, and your disturbing eyes
Strange thing that I, by nature nothing prone
Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Olympian gods, mark now my bedside lamp
I said, seeing how the winter gale increased
Since of no creature living the last breath
My worship from this hour the Sparrow-Drawn
I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields
Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart
Shall I be prisoner till my pulses stop
My most distinguished guest and learned friend.
Think not, nor for a moment let your mind
Gone in good sooth you are: not even in dream
Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane
I know the face of Falsehood and her tongue
Whereas at morning in a jeweled crown
Peril upon the paths of this desire
Women have loved before as I love now
Moon, that against the lintel of the west
When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Heart, have no pity on this house of bone
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
When we that wore the myrtle wear the dust
Time, that is pleased to lengthen out the day
Sorrowful dreams remembered after waking
Most wicked words, forbear to speak them out
Clearly my ruined garden as it stood
Hearing your words, and not a word among them
Believe, if ever the bridges of this town
You say: "Since life is cruel enough at best"
Love me no more, now let the god depart
You loved me not at all, but let it go
I said in the beginning, did I not
O ailing Love, compose your struggling wing
Summer, be seen no more within this wood
If to be left were to be left alone.
I know my mind and I have made my choice
Even in the moment of our earliest kiss
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly
Now by the path I climbed, I journey back
There is a well into whose bottomless eye
The heart once broken is a heart no more
If in the years to come you should recall
Oh, sleep forever in the Latmian cave.