A thaw / Of pain

James Merrill, "An Upset"

The lover leads a form eclipsed, opaque, Past a smoked-glass parterre Towards the first ghostliness he guessed in her.

James Merrill, ‘Some Negatives: X At the Château’

They met in loving like the hands of one Who having worked six days with creature and plant Washes his hands before the evening meal.

James Merrill, ‘The Lovers’

At last through a deprived dusk we felt Snow fall, white seed that would outpeople us Were we not sown with many darknesses, Were we not ourselves grown on the glimmering road Soldiers of shade, with footholds dark in snow.

James Merrill, ‘The Wintering Weeds’

During a lull at dinner the vampire frankly Confessed herself a symbol of the inner Adventure.

James Merrill, ‘A Narrow Escape’

John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace  Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;  And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love! then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats, “When I have fears that I may cease to be”

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee

Percy Shelley

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.

Lord Byron

I wander through each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

William Blake, “London”

O joy, too high for my low style to show: O bliss, fit for a nobler state than me: Envy, put out thine eyes, lest thou do see What oceans of delight in me do flow. My friend, that oft saw through all masks my woe, Come, come, and let me pour myself on thee; Gone is the winter of my misery, My spring appears, O see what here doth grow.

Sir Philip Sidney

Sighs for folly said and done Twist our narrow days; But I must bless, I must praise That you, my swan, who have All gifts that to the swan Impulsive Nature gave, The majesty and pride, Last night should add Your voluntary love.

W.H. Auden, “Fish in the unruffled lakes”

We till shadowed days are done,  We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock, The Goodness carefully worn For atonement or for luck; We must lose our loves, On each beast and bird that moves Turn an envious look.

W.H. Auden, “Fish in the unruffled lakes”

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the sun; Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller's journey is done; Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow, Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

William Blake, “Ah Sun-flower!”

Man is all symmetry, Full of proportions, one limb to another, And all to all the world besides

George Herbert, “Man”

Soul's joy, bend not those morning stars from me

Sir Philip Sidney

The City now Holds all my passion; these my soul most feels: Crowds surging; racket of traffic; market row; Bridges, sonorous under rapid wheels; Pacific lamentations of a bell; The smoking of the old men at their doors; All attitudes of children; the farewell And casting-off of ships for far-off shores.

Wilfred Owen, from “A Palinode” (via the-final-sentence)