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(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")


As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery
The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern,...

O what is that whimpering there in the darkness?
"Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know.
Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck."--"The sea's rising,...

I.

Steadfast as any soldier of the line
He served his England, with the imminent death
Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine
The constant peril of each burdened breath.
...

Long, long ago He said,
He who could wake the dead,
And walk upon the sea--
"Come, follow Me.

"Leave your brown nets and bring
Only your hearts to sing,
Only your souls to pray,...

"There are no ghosts in America."


There are no ghosts, you say,
To haunt her blaze of light;
No shadows in her day,
No phantoms in her night.
Columbus' tattered sail...

I know a land, I, too,
Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows,
And all the winter long the skies are blue,
And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.

Deserts of all delight,...

Under an arch of glorious leaves I passed
Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon
Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.

It was the quiet hour before the sun...

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,...

(1916)


I.

I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;...

As I was walking
Alone by the sea,
"What is that whisper?"
Said Merlin to me.
"Only," I answered,
"The sigh of the wave"--
"Oh, no," replied Merlin,
"'Tis the grass on your grave."
...

This is the song of the wind as it came
Tossing the flags of the nations to flame:

I am the breath of God. I am His laughter.
I am His Liberty. That is my name.
...

When hawthorn buds are creaming white,
And the red foolscap all stuck with may,
Then lasses walk with eyes alight,
And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day.

For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town,...

The man who discovered the use of a chair,
Odds--bobs--
What a wonderful man!
He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair,
Till he thought of a highly original plan....

I.

If souls could sing to heaven's high King
As blackbirds pipe on earth,
How those delicious courts would ring
With gusts of lovely mirth!
What white-robed throng could lift a song...

"And that a reply be received before midnight."
British Ultimatum.


Their Day was at twelve of the night,
When the graves give up their dead.
And still, from the City, no light...

At noon, upon the mountain's purple height,
Above the pine-woods and the clouds it shone
No larger than the small white dome of shell
Left by the fledgling wren when wings are born....

"If I could whisper you all I know,"
Said the Old Fool in the Wood,
"You'd never say that green leaves grow.
You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood
The Master must be in today,
To think such thoughts,'...

The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box
(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp)
Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all
To understand, when I am gone," he muttered....

(New Jersey, 1918)


Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn.
Those wise old elms could hear no cry
Of all that distant agony--...

O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
The road to victory,
The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give...