Through still, bare streets, and cold moonshine
    His homeward way he bent;
The clocks gave out the midnight sign
    As lost in thought he went
Along the rampart's ocean-line,
Where, high above the tossing brine,
    Seaward his lattice leant.

He knew not why he left the throng,
    Why there he could not rest,
What something pained him in the song
    And mocked him in the jest,
Or why, the flitting crowd among,
A moveless moonbeam lay so long
    Athwart one lady's breast!

He watched, but saw her speak to none,
    Saw no one speak to her;
Like one decried, she stood alone,
    From the window did not stir;
Her hair by a haunting gust was blown,
Her eyes in the shadow strangely shown,
    She looked a wanderer.

H...

O, Colleens, kneeling by your altar rails long hence,
When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,
And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air
And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song,
Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry,
And call to my beloved and me: ‘No longer fly
‘Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.’

I asked to see the dead man's face,
As I gave the servant my well-filled basket;
And she deigned to lead me, a wondrous grace,
Where he lay asleep in his rosewood casket.
I was only the sewing-girl, and he the heir to this princely palace.
Flowers, white flowers, everywhere,
In odorous cross, and anchor, and chalice.
The smallest leaf might touch his hair;
But I - my God! I must stand apart,
With my hands pressed silently on my heart,
I must not touch the least brown curl;
For I was only the sewing-girl.

If his stately mother knew what I know,
As she weeping stood by his side this morning,
Would she clasp me in motherly love and woe -
Or drive me out in the cold with scorning?
If she knew that I loved him better than life,
Better than death; since f...

We had finished our pitiful morsel,
    And both sat in silence a while;
At length we looked up at each other.
    And I said, with the ghost of a smile, -
"Only two little potatoes
    And a very small crust of bread -
And then?" - "God will care for us, Lucy!"
    John, quietly answering, said.

"Yes, God will provide for us, Lucy!"
    He said, after musing a while -
I'd been quietly watching his features
    With a feeble attempt at a smile -
"For, 'trust in the Lord, and do good,'
    Our Father in Heaven has said,
'So shalt thou dwell in the land,
    And verily thou shalt be fed!'"

Scarcely the words had he spoken,
    When a faint, little tap at the door
Surprised us, - for all the long morning
    The rain had continue...

The last and greatest Herald of Heaven’s King,
Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,
Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,
Which he than man more harmless found and mild.
His food was locusts, and what young doth spring
With honey that from virgin hives distill’d;
Parch’d body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing
Made him appear, long since from earth exiled.
There burst he forth: ‘All ye, whose hopes rely
On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn;
Repent, repent, and from old errors turn!’
Who listen’d to his voice, obey’d his cry?
Only the echoes, which he made relent,
Rung from their marble caves ‘Repent! Repent!’

This mood hath known all beauty for it sees
O'erwhelmed majesties
In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold
On brows no longer bold,
And through the shadowy terrors of their hell
The love for which they fell,
And how desire which cast them in the deep
Called God too from his sleep.
O, pity, only seer, who looking through
A heart melted like dew,
Seest the long perished in the present thus,
For ever dwell in us.
Whatever time thy golden eyelids ope
They travel to a hope;
Not only backward from these low degrees
To starry dynasties,
But, looking far where now the silence owns
And rules from empty thrones,
Thou seest the enchanted halls of heaven burn
For joy at our return.
Thy tender kiss hath memory we are kings
For all our wanderi...

God, who's in heaven, will hear from thence;
If not to th' sound, yet to the sense.

Those saints which God loves best,
The devil tempts not least.

The rosy day was sweet and young,
The clod-brown lark that hail'd the morn
Had just her summer anthem sung,
And trembling dropped in the corn;
The dew-rais'd flower was perk and proud,
The butterfly around it play'd;
The sky's blue clear, save woolly cloud
That pass'd the sun without a shade.

On the pismire's castle hill,
While the burnet-buttons quak'd,
While beside the stone-pav'd rill
Cowslip bunches nodding shak'd,
Bees in every peep did try,
Great had been the honey shower,
Soon their load was on their thigh,
Yellow dust as fine as flour.

Brazen magpies, fond of clack,
Full of insolence and pride,
Chattering on the donkey's back
Perch'd, and pull'd his shaggy hide;
Odd crows settled on the path,
Dames from milking trot...

It is a superb land, a country of Cockaigne, as they say, that I dream of visiting with an old friend. A strange land, drowned in our northern fogs, that one might call the East of the West, the China of Europe; a land patiently and luxuriously decorated with the wise, delicate vegetations of a warm and capricious phantasy.
A true land of Cockaigne, where all is beautiful, rich, tranquil, and honest; where luxury is pleased to mirror itself in order; where life is opulent, and sweet to breathe; from whence disorder, turbulence, and the unforeseen are excluded; where happiness is married to silence; where even the food is poetic, rich and exciting at the same time; where all things, my beloved, are like you.
Do you know that feverish malady that seizes hold of us in our cold miseries; that nostalgia of a land unknown; that anguis...

On this high altar, fringed with ferns
    That darken against the sky,
The dawn in lonely beauty burns
    And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below
    Is quieter than the dew,
Quieter than the clouds that flow
    Across the stainless blue.

On this bare crest, the angels kneel
    And breathe the sweets that rise
From flowers too little to reveal
    Their beauty to our eyes.

I have seen Edens on the earth
    With queenly blooms arrayed;
But here the fairest come to birth,
    The smallest flowers He made.

O, high above the sounding pine,
    And richer, sweeter far,
The wild thyme wakes. The celandine
    Looks at the morning star.

They may not see the heavens unfold.
    They breath...

I've watched too late; the morn is near;
One look at God's broad silent sky!
Oh, hopes and wishes vainly dear,
How in your very strength ye die!

Even while your glow is on the cheek,
And scarce the high pursuit begun,
The heart grows faint, the hand grows weak,
The task of life is left undone.

See where upon the horizon's brim,
Lies the still cloud in gloomy bars;
The waning moon, all pale and dim,
Goes up amid the eternal stars.

Late, in a flood of tender light,
She floated through the ethereal blue,
A softer sun, that shone all night
Upon the gathering beads of dew.

And still thou wanest, pallid moon!
The encroaching shadow grows apace;
Heaven's everlasting watchers soon
Shall see thee blotted from thy place.

High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.

To-night across a wild wet plain
A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
Of long departed days.

I cannot say what forest saith
Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
Are tones that used to be.

Yea, in these deep dim solitudes
I hear a sound I know
The voice that lived in Penrith woods
Twelve weary years ago.

And while the hymn of other years
Is on a listening land,
The Angel of the Past appears
And leads me by the hand;

And takes me over moaning wave,
And tracts of sleepless change,
To set me by a lonely grave
Within a lonely range.

    Your presence is a psalm of praise,
    And as its measure grandly rings
    God's finger finds my heart and plays
    A te deum upon its strings.
    I never see you but I feel
    That I in gratitude must kneel.

    Your head down-bent, the brow of snow
    Crowned with the shining braids of hair,
    To me, because I love you so,
    Is in itself a tender prayer,
    All faith, all meekness, and all trust -
    "Amen!" I cry, because I must.

    Your clear eyes hold the text apart,
    And shame my love of place and pelf
    With, "Love the Lord with all thine heart,
    And love thy neighbor as thyself!"
    Dear eyes and true, - I sorely need
    More knowledge of your gracious creed.

    About your lips the summer l...

THE SUN SHINES,
The coltsfoot flowers along the railway banks
Shine like flat coin which Jove in thanks
Strews each side the lines.

A steeple
In purple elms, daffodils
Sparkle beneath; luminous hills
Beyond - and no people.

England, Oh Danaë
To this spring of cosmic gold
That falls on your lap of mould!
What then are we?

What are we
Clay-coloured, who roll in fatigue
As the train falls league by league
From our destiny?

A hand is over my face,
A cold hand. I peep between the fingers
To watch the world that lingers
Behind, yet keeps pace.

Always there, as I peep
Between the fingers that cover my face!
Which then is it that falls from its place
And rolls down the steep?

Is it the train

Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow,
Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;
And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
Embroidered with names of the Djinns, a miraculous weaving,

Inscribed to my Mother


September, all glorious with gold, as a king
In the radiance of triumph attired,
Outlightening the summer, outsweetening the spring,
Broods wide on the woodlands with limitless wing,
A presence of all men desired.
Far eastward and westward the sun-coloured lands
Smile warm as the light on them smiles;
And statelier than temples upbuilded with hands,
Tall column by column, the sanctuary stands
Of the pine-forest's infinite aisles.
Mute worship, too fervent for praise or for prayer,
Possesses the spirit with peace,
Fulfilled with the breath of the luminous air,
The fragrance, the silence, the shadows as fair
As the rays that recede or increase.
Ridged pillars that redden aloft and aloof,
With never a branch for a ne...

    The gleaming head of one fine friend
    Is bent above my little song,
    So through the treasure-pits of Heaven
    In fancy's shoes, I march along.

    I wander, seek and peer and ponder
    In Splendor's last ensnaring lair -
    'Mid burnished harps and burnished crowns
    Where noble chariots gleam and flare:

    Amid the spirit-coins and gems,
    The plates and cups and helms of fire -
    The gorgeous-treasure-pits of Heaven -
    Where angel-misers slake desire!

    O endless treasure-pits of gold
    Where silly angel-men make mirth -
    I think that I am there this hour,
    Though walking in the ways of earth!