time the winter's cold decays,
And when the kindly stars are gathering might,
Mine eye that violet and green portrays
(And nothing else) which, at my warfare's birth,
Armed Love so well that yet he worsts me quite.
I see the delicate fine tissue light
In which our little damsel's limbs are dressed....
Oft on the hills a feeble snow-streak lies,
Which the sun smiteth in sequestered place.
Let sun rule snow! Thou, Love, my ruler art,
When on that fair and more than human face
I muse, which from afar makes soft my eyes....
I never yet saw after mighty rain
The roving stars in the calm welkin glide
And glitter back between the frost and dew,
But straight those lovely eyes are at my side....
If ever yet, on roses white and red,
My eyes have fallen, where in bowl of gold
They were set down, fresh culled by virgin hands,
There have I seemed her aspect to behold....
But when the year has flecked
Some deal with white and yellow flowers the braes,
I forthwith recollect
That day and place in which I first admired
Laura's gold hair outspread, and straight was fired....
That I could number all the stars anon
And shut the waters in a tiny glass
Belike I thought, when in this narrow sheet
I got a fancy to record, alas,
How many ways this Beauty's paragon
Hath spread her light, while standing self-complete,
So that from her I never could retreat....
She's closed for me all paths in earth and sky.

The reflective modern mind is clear in this, despite its loquacity.
He was yet more eloquent and intense, more fertile in comparisons,
when his happiest days were over.

In Ode 24, standing at a window he watches the strange forms his
imagination conjures up--a wild creature torn in pieces by two dogs,
a ship wrecked by a storm, a laurel shattered by lightning:

Within this wood, out of a rock did rise
A spring of water, mildly rumbling down,
Whereto approached not in any wise
The homely shepherd nor the ruder clown,
But many muses and the nymphs withal....
But while herein I took my chief delight,
I saw (alas!) the gaping earth devour
The spring, the place, and all clean out of sight--
Which yet aggrieves my heart unto this hour....
At last, so fair a lady did I spy,
That thinking yet on her I burn and quake,
On herbs and flowers she walked pensively....
A stinging serpent by the heel her caught,
Wherewith she languished as the gath