November

My November Guest
My sorrow, when she's here with me
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolates, deserted tress,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauty she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reasons why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of Bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Frost.

Revulsion
Though I waste watches framing words to fetter
Some unkown spirit to mine in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better
To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.

For winning love we win the risk of losing,
And losing love is as one's life were riven;
It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using
to cede what was superfluously given.

Let me then never feel the fateful thrilling
That devestates the love-worn wooer's frame,
The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling
That agonizes disappointed aim!
So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,
And my heart's table bear no woman's name.

Hardy.

Ode to a Nightengale
...Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Keats