Works

I

I wot well o' his going
To think in flowers fair; -
His a right kind heart, my dear,
To give the grass such hair.


II.

I wot well o' his lying...

Out of it all but this remains:
I was with one who crossed wide chains
Of the Cordilleras, whose peaks
Lock in the wilds of Yucatan,
Chiapas and Honduras. Weeks
And then a city that no man...

He rode adown the autumn wood,
A man dark-eyed and brown;
A mountain girl before him stood
Clad in a homespun gown.

'To ride this road is death for you!
My father waits you there;...

All things have power to hold us back.
Our very hopes build up a wall
Of doubt, whose shadow stretches black
O'er all.

The dreams, that helped us once, become
Dread disappointments, that oppose...

Through some strange sense of sight or touch
I find what all have found before,
The presence I have feared so much,
The unknown's immaterial door.

I seek not and it comes to me:...

Here is a tale for any man or woman:
A fool sought Death; and braved him with his bauble
Among the graves. At last he heard a hobble,
And something passed him, monstrous, super-human....

Within my veins it beats
And burns within my brain;
For when the year is sad and sear
I dream the dream again.

Ah! over young am I
God knows! yet in this sleep...

I. SPRING ON THE HILLS

Ah, shall I follow, on the hills,
The Spring, as wild wings follow?
Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills,
Crabapple trees the hollow,
Haunts of the bee and swallow?...

Ah, God! were I away, away,
By woodland-belted hills!
There might be more in Thy bright day
Than my poor spirit thrills.

The elder coppice, banks of blooms,
The spice-wood brush, the field...

No personal; a God divinely crowned
With gold and raised upon a golden throne
Deep in a golden glory, whence he nods
Man this or that, and little more than man!

And shalt thou see Him individual?...

Demeter sad! the wells of sorrow lay
Eternal gushing in thy lonely path.

Methinks I see her now - an awful shape
Tall o'er a dragon team in frenzied search
From Argive plains unto the jeweled shores...

Es gibt im Menschenleben Augenblicke,
Wo er dem Weltgeist n'her ist als sonst. - SCHILLER.


He? why, a tall Franconian strong and young,
Brown as a walnut the first frost hath hulled;...

A broken rainbow on the skies of May
Touching the sodden roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost:
Upon the heaven of a soul the ghost
Of a great love, perfect in its pure ray,...

Shut in with phantoms of life's hollow hopes,
And shadows of old sins satiety slew,
And the young ghosts of the dead dreams love knew,
Out of the day into the night she gropes....

Not all the bravery that day puts on
Of gold and azure, ardent or austere,
Shall ease my soul of sorrow; grown more dear
Than all the joy that heavenly hope may don.
Far up the skies the rumor of the dawn...

How shall it be with them that day
When God demands of Earth His pay?
With them who make a god of clay
And gold and put all truth away.

Shall not they see the lightning-ray...

I.

There is a little girl I know
Who takes her time to come and go.
If you should ask her please to hurry,
She tries her best then to be slow:
She gives her parents lots of worry;...

The day is dead; and in the west
The slender crescent of the moon--
Diana's crystal-kindled crest--
Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon.
What is the murmur in the dell?...

"O Dionysos! Dionysos! the ivy-crowned!
O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!"

Within my sleep a Maenad came to me:
A harp of crimson agate strung with gold...

What shall her silence keep
Under the sun?
Here, where the willows weep
And waters run;
Here, where she lies asleep,
And all is done.

Lights, when the tree-top swings;...