apart
Hands trembling with what toils?  In their retreat
   I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
   And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.

SONNET—SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS

O’er the Campagna it is dim warm weather;
   The Spring comes with a full heart silently,
   And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea
Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather.

With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together
   Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers.
   Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers,
Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether.

I fain would put my hands about thy face,
   Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring,
      And draw thee to me like a mournful child.

Thou lookest on me from another place;
   I touch not this day’s secret, nor the thing
      That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild.

SONG OF THE NIGHT AT DAYBREAK

All my stars forsake me,
And the dawn-winds shake me.
Where shall I betake me?

Whither shall I run
Till the set of sun,
Till the day be done?

To the mountain-mine,
To the boughs o’ the pine,
To the blind man’s eyne,

To a brow that is
Bowed upon the knees,
Sick with memories.

SONNET—TO A DAISY

Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide,
   Like all created things, secrets from me,
   And stand a barrier to eternity.
And I, how can I praise thee well and wide?

From where I dwell—upon the hither side?
   Thou little veil for so great mystery,
   When shall I penetrate all things and thee,
And then look back?  For this I must abide,

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled
   Literally between me and the world.
      Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring,

And from a poet’s side shall read his book.
   O daisy mine, what will it be to look
      From God’s side even of such a simple thing?

SONNET—TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME

Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?
   This winter of a silent poet’s heart
   Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art,
Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.

Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line?
   Did the dead summer’s last warmth foster thee?
   Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me,
And stirring out of sight,—and thou the sign?

Where shall I look—backwards or to the morrow
   For others of thy fragrance, secret child?
      Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee?

—Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow,
   Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild?
      How, my December violet, shall I name thee?

FUTURE POETRY

No new delights to our desire
   The singers of the past can yield.
   I lift mine eyes to hill and field,
And see in them your yet dumb lyre,
   Poets unborn and unrevealed.

Singers to come, what thoughts will start
   To song? what words of yours be sent
   Through man’s soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
   Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words
   Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
   And crown these towers in circling flight
And cross these seas like summer birds,
   And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours;
   Some mystic part of you belongs
   To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers,
   Which will mean so much in your songs.

I wonder, like the maid who found,
   And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme
   Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream.
She dreams on its sealed past profound;
   On a deep future sealed I dream.

She bears it in her wanderings
   Within her arms, and has not pressed
   Her unskilled fingers, but her breast
Upon those silent sacred strings;
   I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest.

For I, i’ the world of lands and seas,
   The sky of wind and rain and fire,
   And in man’s world of long desire—
In all that is yet dumb in these—
   Have found a more mysterious lyre.

THE POET SINGS TO HER POET

THE MOON TO THE SUN

As the full moon shining there
To the sun that lighteth her
Am I unto thee for ever,
O my secret glory-giver!
O my light, I am dark but fair,
   Black but fair.

Shine, Earth loves thee!  And then shine
And be loved through thoughts of mine.
All thy secrets that I treasure
I translate them at my pleasure.
I am crowned with glory of thine.
   Thine, not thine.

I make pensive thy delight,
And thy strong gold silver-white.
Though all beauty of nine thou makest,
Yet to earth which thou forsakest
I have made thee fair all night,
   Day all night.

A POET’S SONNET

If I should quit thee, sacrifice, forswear,
   To what, my art, shall I give thee in keeping?
   To the long winds of heaven?  Shall these come sweeping
My songs forgone against my face and hair?

Or shall the mountain streams my lost joys bear,
   My past poetic pain in the rain be weeping?
   No, I shall live a poet waking, sleeping,
And I shall die a poet unaware.

From me, my art, thou canst not pass away;
   And I, a singer though I cease to sing,
      Shall own thee without joy in thee or woe.

Through my indifferent words of every day,
   Scattered and all unlinked the rhymes shall ring
      And make my poem; and I shall not know.

THE MODERN POET

A SONG OF DERIVATIONS

I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
   Down, through long links of death and birth,
   From the past poets of the earth.
My immortality is there.

I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
   Awoke my breath i’ the young world’s air.
   I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and flower.

Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose
   In morning lands, in distant hills;
   And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.

Voices, I have not heard, possessed
My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed
   With relics of the far unknown.
   And mixed with memories not my own
The sweet streams throng into my breast.

Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me
   Woke long ago and far apart.
   Heavily on this little heart
Presses this immortality.

AFTER A PARTING

Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee;
   I never name thee even.
But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee?
   For thou art so near Heaven
That heavenward meditations pause upon thee.

Thou dost beset the path to every shrine;
   My trembling thoughts discern
Thy goodness in the good for which I pine;
   And if I turn from but one sin, I turn
Unto a smile of thine.

How shall I thrust thee apart
   Since all my growth tends to thee night and day—
To thee faith, hope, and art?
   Swift are the currents setting all one way;
They draw my life, my life, out of my heart.

RENOUNCEMENT

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
   I shun the