Others

We’re made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; And so they are better, painted—better to us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that.

In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

While you sat and played toccatas, stately at the clavichord.

Truth that peeps Over the glasses’ edge when dinner’s done.

Less is more. 3

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles.

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the northwest died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay.

The Savior at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off.

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us—they watch from their graves!

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive.

The most despairing songs are the loveliest of all, I know immortal ones composed only of tears.

Everything passes—Robust art Alone is eternal. The bust Survives the city. 1

Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells.

Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells.

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom.

Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul— Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace— Radiant palace—reared its head.

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

If I could dwell Where Israfel 1 Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

If I could dwell Where Israfel 1 Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.

Health that mocks the doctor’s rules, Knowledge never learned of schools.

Three silences there are: the first of speech, The second of desire, the third of thought.