revered.

An arm that never shook did not obscure
   Her woman’s intuition of the bliss—
   Their tempter’s moment o’er the black abyss,
Across the narrow plank—he could abjure.

Then came a day that clipped for him the thread,
   And their first touch of lips, as he lay cold,
   Was all of earthly in their love untold,
Beyond all earthly known to them who wed.

So has there come the gust at South-west flung
   By sudden volt on eves of freezing mist,
   When sister snowflake sister snowdrop kissed,
And one passed out, and one the bell-head hung.

SONG IN THE SONGLESS

They have no song, the sedges dry,
      And still they sing.
It is within my breast they sing,
      As I pass by.
Within my breast they touch a string,
      They wake a sigh.
There is but sound of sedges dry;
In me they sing.

UNION IN DISSEVERANCE

Sunset worn to its last vermilion he;
She that star overhead in slow descent:
That white star with the front of angel she;
He undone in his rays of glory spent

Halo, fair as the bow-shot at his rise,
He casts round her, and knows his hour of rest
Incomplete, were the light for which he dies,
Less like joy of the dove that wings to nest.

Lustrous momently, near on earth she sinks;
Life’s full throb over breathless and abased:
Yet stand they, though impalpable the links,
One, more one than the bridally embraced.

THE BURDEN OF STRENGTH

If that thou hast the gift of strength, then know
Thy part is to uplift the trodden low;
Else in a giant’s grasp until the end
A hopeless wrestler shall thy soul contend.

THE MAIN REGRET

WRITTEN FOR THE CHARING CROSS ALBUM

I

Seen, too clear and historic within us, our sins of omission
   Frown when the Autumn days strike us all ruthlessly bare.
They of our mortal diseases find never healing physician;
   Errors they of the soul, past the one hope to repair.

II

Sunshine might we have been unto seed under soil, or have scattered
   Seed to ascendant suns brighter than any that shone.
Even the limp-legged beggar a sick desperado has flattered
   Back to a half-sloughed life cheered by the mere human tone.

ALTERNATION

Between the fountain and the rill
I passed, and saw the mighty will
To leap at sky; the careless run,
As earth would lead her little son.

Beneath them throbs an urgent well,
That here is play, and there is war.
I know not which had most to tell
Of whence we spring and what we are.

HAWARDEN

When comes the lighted day for men to read
Life’s meaning, with the work before their hands
Till this good gift of breath from debt is freed,
Earth will not hear her children’s wailful bands
Deplore the chieftain fall’n in sob and dirge;
Nor they look where is darkness, but on high.
The sun that dropped down our horizon’s verge,
Illumes his labours through the travelled sky,
Now seen in sum, most glorious; and ’tis known
By what our warrior wrought we hold him fast.
A splendid image built of man has flown;
His deeds inspired of God outstep a Past.
Ours the great privilege to have had one
Among us who celestial tasks has done.

AT THE CLOSE

To Thee, dear God of Mercy, both appeal,
Who straightway sound the call to arms.  Thou know’st;
And that black spot in each embattled host,
Spring of the blood-stream, later wilt reveal.
Now is it red artillery and white steel;
Till on a day will ring the victor’s boast,
That ’tis Thy chosen towers uppermost,
Where Thy rejected grovels under heel.
So in all times of man’s descent insane
To brute, did strength and craft combining strike,
Even as a God of Armies, his fell blow.
But at the close he entered Thy domain,
Dear God of Mercy, and if lion-like
He tore the fall’n, the Eternal was his Foe.

FOREST HISTORY

I

Beneath the vans of doom did men pass in.
   Heroic who came out; for round them hung
   A wavering phantom’s red volcano tongue,
With league-long lizard tail and fishy fin:

II

Old Earth’s original Dragon; there retired
   To his last fastness; overthrown by few.
   Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew.
Then man to play devorant straight was fired.

III

More intimate became the forest fear
   While pillared darkness hatched malicious life
   At either elbow, wolf or gnome or knife
And wary slid the glance from ear to ear.

IV

In chillness, like a clouded lantern-ray,
   The forest’s heart of fog on mossed morass,
   On purple pool and silky cotton-grass,
Revealed where lured the swallower byway.

V

Dead outlook, flattened back with hard rebound
   Off walls of distance, left each mounted height.
   It seemed a giant hag-fiend, churning spite
Of humble human being, held the ground.

VI

Through friendless wastes, through treacherous woodland, slow
   The feet sustained by track of feet pursued
   Pained steps, and found the common brotherhood
By sign of Heaven indifferent, Nature foe.

VII

Anon a mason’s work amazed the sight,
   And long-frocked men, called Brothers, there abode.
   They pointed up, bowed head, and dug and sowed;
Whereof was shelter, loaf, and warm firelight.

VIII

What words they taught were nails to scratch the head.
   Benignant works explained the chanting brood.
   Their monastery lit black solitude,
As one might think a star