Three Sonnets for Voice, Viola and Piano

Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Reject me not into the world again.
With you alone is excellence and peace,
Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain.
Enchanted in your air benign and shrewd,
With limbs a-sprawl and empty faces pale,
The spiteful and the stingy and the rude
Sleep like the scullions in the fairy-tale.
This moment is the best the world can give:
The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem.
Reject me not, sweet sounds; oh, let me live,
Till Doom espy my towers and scatter them,
A city spell-bound under the aging sun.
Music my rampart, and my only one. 

Time does not bring relief: you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain:
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from ev'ry mountain side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
where never fell his foot or shone his face.
I say "There is no mem'ry of him here,"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

Thou famished grave, I will not fill thee yet,
Roar though thou dost, I am too happy here;
Gnaw thine own sides, fast on; I have no fear
Of thy dark project, but my heart is set
On living - I have heroes to beget
Before I die; I will not come anear
Thy dismal jaws for many a splendid year;
Till I be old, I aim not to be eat.
I cannot starve thee out: I am thy prey
And thou shalt have me; but I dare defend
That I can stave thee off; and I dare say,
What with the life I lead, the force I spend,
I'll be but bones and jewels on that day,
And leave thee hungry even in the end.