first-breath;
And batter at the doors of Death.
To lull their dearest:—watch their dead;
While the long thunders overhead,
Gather and break for evermore,
Eternal tides—eternal War,
  War—war—Bread—bread!

ALISON'S MOTHER TO THE BROOK

Brook, of the listening grass,
Brook of the sun-fleckt wings,
Brook of the same wild way and flickering spell!
Must you begone? Will you forever pass,
After so many years and dear to tell?—
Brook of all hoverings …
Brook that I kneel above;
Brook of my love.

Ah, but I have a charm to trouble you;
A spell that shall subdue
Your all-escaping heart, unheedful one
And unremembering!
Now, when I make my prayer
To your wild brightness there
That will but run and run,
O mindless Water!—
Hark,—now will I bring
A grace as wild,—my little yearling daughter,
My Alison.

Heed well that threat;
And tremble for your hill-born liberty
So bright to see!—
Your shadow-dappled way, unthwarted yet,
And the high hills whence all your dearness bubbled;—
You, never to possess!
For let her dip but once—O fair and fleet,—
Here in your shallows, yes,
Here in your silverness
Her two blithe feet,—
O Brook of mine, how shall your heart be troubled!

The heart, the bright unmothering heart of you,
That never knew.—
(O never, more than mine of long ago.
How could we know?—)
For who should guess
The shock and smiting of that perfectness?—
The lily-thrust of those ecstatic feet
Unpityingly sweet?—
Sweet beyond all the blurred blind dreams that grope
The upward paths of hope?
And who could guess
The dulcet holiness,
The lilt and gladness of those jocund feet,
Unpityingly sweet?
Ah, for your coolness that shall change and stir
With every glee of her!—
Under the fresh amaze
That drips and glistens from her wiles and ways;
When the endearing air
That everywhere
Must twine and fold and follow her, shall be
Rippled to ring on ring of melody,—
Music, like shadows from the joy of her,
Small starry Reveller!—
When from her triumphings,—
All frolic wings—
There soars beyond the glories of the height,
The laugh of her delight!

And it shall sound, until
Your heart stand still;
Shaken to human sight;
Struck through with tears and light;
One with the one desire
Unto that central Fire
Of Love the Sun, whence all we lighted are
Even from clod to star.

And all your glory, O most swift and sweet!—
And all your exultation only this;
To be the lowly and forgotten kiss
Beneath those feet.

You that must ever pass,—
You of the same wild way,—
The silver-bright good-bye without a look!—
You that would never stay,
For the beseeching grass …
Brook!—

You, Four Walls,
  Wall not in my heart!
When the lovely night-time falls
  All so welcomely,
Blinding, sweet hearth-fire,
Light of heart's desire,
  Blind not, blind not me!
Unto them that weep apart,—
While you glow, within,
  Wreckt, despairing kin,—
Dark with misery:
—Do not blind my heart!

  You, close Heart!
    Never hide from mine
    Worlds that I divine
  Through thy human dearness.
  O belovèd Nearness,
    Hallow all I understand
    With thy hand-in-hand;—
  All the lights I seek,
  With thy cheek-to-cheek;
    All the loveliness I loved apart.

    You, heart's Home!—
    Wall not in my heart.

CANTICLE OF THE BABE

I

Over the broken world, the dark gone by,
Horror of outcast darkness torn with wars;
And timeless agony
Of the white fire, heaped high by blinded Stars,
Unfaltering, unaghast;—
Out of the midmost Fire
At last,—at last,—
Cry! …
O darkness' one desire,—
O darkness, have you heard?—
Black Chaos, blindly striving towards the Word?
—The Cry!

Behold thy conqueror, Death!
Behold, behold from whom
It flutters forth, that triumph of First-Breath,
Victorious one that can but breathe and cling,—
This pulsing flower,—this weaker than a wing,
Halcyon thing!—
Cradled above unfathomable doom.

II

Under my feet, O Death,
Under my trembling feet!
Back, through the gates of hell, now give me way.
I come.—I bring new Breath!
Over the trampled shards of mine own clay,
That smoulder still, and burn,
Lo, I return!
Hail, singing Light that floats
Pulsing with chorused motes:—
Hail to thee, Sun, that lookest on all lands!
And take thou from my weak undying hands,
A precious thing, unblemished, undefiled:—
Here, on my heart uplift,
Behold the Gift,—
Thy glory and my glory, and my child!

III

(And our eyes were opened; eyes that had been holden.
  And I saw the world, and the fruits thereof.
And I saw their glories, scarlet-stained and golden,
  All a crumbled dust beneath the feet of Love.
  And I saw their dreams, all of nothing worth;
  But a path for Love, for Him to walk above,
And I saw new heaven, and new earth.)

IV

    The grass is full of murmurs;
    The sky is full of wings;
        The earth is full of breath.
        With voices, choir on choir
        With tongues of fire,
    They sing how Life out-sings—
        Out-numbers Death.

V

Who are these that fly;
As doves, and as doves to the windows?
Doves, like hovering dreams round Love that slumbereth;
Silvering clouds blown by,
Doves and doves to the windows,—
Warm through the radiant sky their wings beat breath.
They are the world's new-born:
Doves, doves to the windows!
Lighting, as flakes of snow;
Lighting, as flakes of flame;
Some to the fair sown furrows;
Some to the huts and burrows
Choked of the mire and thorn,—
Deep in the city's shame.
Wind-scattered wreaths they go,
Doves, and doves, to the windows;
Some for worshipping arms, to shelter and fold, and shrine;
Some to be torn and trodden,
Withered and waste, and sodden;
Pitiful, sacred leaves from Life's dishonored vine.

VI

O Vine of Life, that in these reaching fingers,
Urges a sunward way!
Hold here and climb, and halt not, that there lingers
So far outstripped, my halting, wistful clay.
Make here thy foothold of my rapturous heart,—
Yea, though the tendrils start
To hold and twine!
I am the heart that nursed
Thy sunward thirst.—
A little while, a little while, O Vine,
My own and never mine,
Feed thy sweet roots with me
Abundantly.
O wonder-wildness of the pushing Bud
With hunger at the