Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight,
   —The little solitudes of delight
This tide constrains in dim embraces.

You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,
But know not of the quiet dimmed
   Rivers your coming floods and fills,
   The little pools ’mid happier hills,
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.

What, I have secrets from you?  Yes.
But, visiting Sea, your love doth press
   And reach in further than you know,
   And fills all these; and when you go,
There’s loneliness in loneliness.

BUILDERS OF RUINS

We build with strength the deep tower-wall
   That shall be shattered thus and thus.
And fair and great are court and hall,
   But how fair—this is not for us,
Who know the lack that lurks in all.

We know, we know how all too bright
   The hues are that our painting wears,
And how the marble gleams too white;—
   We speak in unknown tongues, the years
Interpret everything aright,

And crown with weeds our pride of towers,
   And warm our marble through with sun,
And break our pavements through with flowers,
   With an Amen when all is done,
Knowing these perfect things of ours.

O days, we ponder, left alone,
   Like children in their lonely hour,
And in our secrets keep your own,
   As seeds the colour of the flower.
To-day they are not all unknown,

The stars that ’twixt the rise and fall,
   Like relic-seers, shall one by one
Stand musing o’er our empty hall;
   And setting moons shall brood upon
The frescoes of our inward wall.

And when some midsummer shall be,
   Hither will come some little one
(Dusty with bloom of flowers is he),
   Sit on a ruin i’ the late long sun,
And think, one foot upon his knee.

And where they wrought, these lives of ours,
   So many-worded, many-souled,
A North-west wind will take the towers,
   And dark with colour, sunny and cold,
Will range alone among the flowers.

And here or there, at our desire,
   The little clamorous owl shall sit
Through her still time; and we aspire
   To make a law (and know not it)
Unto the life of a wild briar.

Our purpose is distinct and dear,
   Though from our open eyes ’tis hidden.
Thou, Time-to-come, shalt make it clear,
   Undoing our work; we are children chidden
With pity and smiles of many a year.

Who shall allot the praise, and guess
   What part is yours and what is ours?—
O years that certainly will bless
   Our flowers with fruits, our seeds with flowers,
With ruin all our perfectness.

Be patient, Time, of our delays,
   Too happy hopes, and wasted fears,
Our faithful ways, our wilful ways,
   Solace our labours, O our seers
The seasons, and our bards the days;

And make our pause and silence brim
   With the shrill children’s play, and sweets
Of those pathetic flowers and dim,
   Of those eternal flowers my Keats
Dying felt growing over him.

SONNET

I touched the heart that loved me as a player
   Touches a lyre; content with my poor skill
   No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still
I thought at times: Is there no sweet lost air
Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?).
   Oh, he alone, alone could so fulfil
   My thoughts in sound to the measure of my will.
He is gone, and silence takes me unaware.

The songs I knew not he resumes, set free
From my constraining love, alas for me!
   His part in our tune goes with him; my part
Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute
   As one with full strong music in his heart
Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute.

SONG OF THE DAY TO THE NIGHT

THE POET SINGS TO HIS POET

From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn,
   We two are sundered always, sweet.
A few stars shake o’er the rocky lawn
   And the cold sea-shore when we meet.
   The twilight comes with thy shadowy feet.

We are not day and night, my Fair,
   But one.  It is an hour of hours.
And thoughts that are not otherwhere
   Are thought here ’mid the blown sea-flowers,
   This meeting and this dusk of ours.

Delight has taken Pain to her heart,
   And there is dusk and stars for these.
Oh, linger, linger!  They would not part;
   And the wild wind comes from over-seas
   With a new song to the olive trees.

And when we meet by the sounding pine
   Sleep draws near to his dreamless brother.
And when thy sweet eyes answer mine,
   Peace nestles close to her mournful mother,
   And Hope and Weariness kiss each other.

‘SOEUR MONIQUE’

A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN

Quiet form of silent nun,
What has given you to my inward eyes?
What has marked you, unknown one,
In the throngs of centuries
That mine ears do listen through?
This old master’s melody
That expresses you,
This admired simplicity,
Tender, with a serious wit,
And two words, the name of it,
‘Soeur Monique.’

And if sad the music is,
It is sad with mysteries
Of a small immortal thing
That the passing ages sing,—
Simple music making mirth
Of the dying and the birth
Of the people of the earth.

No, not sad; we are beguiled,
Sad with living as we are;
Ours the sorrow, outpouring
Sad self on a selfless thing,
As our eyes and hearts are mild
With our sympathy for Spring,
With a pity sweet and wild
For the innocent and far,
With our sadness in a star,
Or our sadness in a child.

But two words, and this sweet air.
      Soeur Monique,
Had he more, who set you there?
Was his music-dream of you
Of some perfect nun he knew,
Or of some ideal, as true?

And I see you where you stand
With your life held in your hand
As a rosary of days.
And your thoughts in calm arrays,
And your innocent prayers are told
On your rosary of days.
And the young days and the old
With their quiet prayers did meet
When the chaplet was complete.

Did it vex you, the surmise
Of this wind of words, this storm of cries,
   Though you kept the silence so
   In the storms of long ago,
   And you keep it, like a star?
   —Of the evils triumphing,
Strong, for all your perfect conquering,
   Silenced conqueror that you are?
And I wonder at your peace, I wonder.
Would it trouble you to know,
Tender soul, the world and sin
By your calm feet trodden under
      Long ago,
Living now, mighty to win?
And your feet are vanished like the snow.

Vanished; but the poet, he
In whose dream your face appears,
He who ranges unknown years
With your music in his heart,
Speaks to you familiarly
Where you keep apart,
And invents you as you were.
And your picture, O my nun!
Is a strangely easy one,
For the holy weed you wear,
For your hidden eyes and hidden hair,
And in picturing you I may
Scarcely go astray.

O the vague reality!
The mysterious certainty!
O strange truth of these my guesses
In the wide thought-wildernesses!
—Truth of one divined of many flowers;
Of one raindrop in the showers
Of the long-ago swift rain;
Of one tear of many tears
In some world-renownéd pain;
Of one daisy ’mid the centuries of sun;
Of a little living nun
In the garden of the years.

Yes, I am not far astray;
But I guess you as might one
Pausing when young March is grey,
In a violet-peopled day;
All his thoughts