class="poetry">I know not how, but as I count
   The beads of former years,
Old laughter catches in my throat
   With the very feel of tears.

SPRING SONG

The air was full of sun and birds,
   The fresh air sparkled clearly.
Remembrance wakened in my heart
   And I knew I loved her dearly.

The fallows and the leafless trees
   And all my spirit tingled.
My earliest thought of love, and Spring’s
   First puff of perfume mingled.

In my still heart the thoughts awoke,
   Came lone by lone together—
Say, birds and Sun and Spring, is Love
   A mere affair of weather?

THE SUMMER SUN SHONE ROUND ME

The summer sun shone round me,
   The folded valley lay
In a stream of sun and odour,
   That sultry summer day.

The tall trees stood in the sunlight
   As still as still could be,
But the deep grass sighed and rustled
   And bowed and beckoned me.

The deep grass moved and whispered
   And bowed and brushed my face.
It whispered in the sunshine:
   “The winter comes apace.”

YOU LOOKED SO TEMPTING IN THE PEW

You looked so tempting in the pew,
   You looked so sly and calm—
My trembling fingers played with yours
   As both looked out the Psalm.

Your heart beat hard against my arm,
   My foot to yours was set,
Your loosened ringlet burned my cheek
   Whenever they two met.

O little, little we hearkened, dear,
   And little, little cared,
Although the parson sermonised,
   The congregation stared.

LOVE’S VICISSITUDES

As Love and Hope together
   Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
   For many a pleasant mile—
Link-armed and dumb they travel,
   They sing not, but they smile.

Hope leaving, Love commences
   To practise on the lute;
And as he sings and travels
   With lingering, laggard foot,
Despair plays obligato
   The sentimental flute.

Until in singing garments
   Comes royally, at call—
Comes limber-hipped Indiff’rence
   Free stepping, straight and tall—
Comes singing and lamenting,
   The sweetest pipe of all.

DUDDINGSTONE

With caws and chirrupings, the woods
   In this thin sun rejoice.
The Psalm seems but the little kirk
   That sings with its own voice.

The cloud-rifts share their amber light
   With the surface of the mere—
I think the very stones are glad
   To feel each other near.

Once more my whole heart leaps and swells
   And gushes o’er with glee;
The fingers of the sun and shade
   Touch music stops in me.

Now fancy paints that bygone day
   When you were here, my fair—
The whole lake rang with rapid skates
   In the windless winter air.

You leaned to me, I leaned to you,
   Our course was smooth as flight—
We steered—a heel-touch to the left,
   A heel-touch to the right.

We swung our way through flying men,
   Your hand lay fast in mine:
We saw the shifting crowd dispart,
   The level ice-reach shine.

I swear by yon swan-travelled lake,
   By yon calm hill above,
I swear had we been drowned that day
   We had been drowned in love.

STOUT MARCHES LEAD TO CERTAIN ENDS

Stout marches lead to certain ends,
We seek no Holy Grail, my friends—
That dawn should find us every day
Some fraction farther on our way.

The dumb lands sleep from east to west,
They stretch and turn and take their rest.
The cock has crown in the steading-yard,
But priest and people slumber hard.

We two are early forth, and hear
The nations snoring far and near.
So peacefully their rest they take,
It seems we are the first awake!

—Strong heart! this is no royal way,
A thousand cross-roads seek the day;
And, hid from us, to left and right,
A thousand seekers seek the light.

AWAY WITH FUNERAL MUSIC

Away with funeral music—set
   The pipe to powerful lips—
The cup of life’s for him that drinks
   And not for him that sips.

TO SYDNEY

Not thine where marble-still and white
Old statues share the tempered light
And mock the uneven modern flight,
   But in the stream
Of daily sorrow and delight
   To seek a theme.

I too, O friend, have steeled my heart
Boldly to choose the better part,
To leave the beaten ways of art,
   And wholly free
To dare, beyond the scanty chart,
   The deeper sea.

All vain restrictions left behind,
Frail bark! I loose my anchored mind
And large, before the prosperous wind
   Desert the strand—
A new Columbus sworn to find
   The morning land.

Nor too ambitious, friend.  To thee
I own my weakness.  Not for me
To sing the enfranchised nations’ glee,
   Or count the cost
Of warships foundered far at sea
   And battles lost.

High on the far-seen, sunny hills,
Morning-content my bosom fills;
Well-pleased, I trace the wandering rills
   And learn their birth.
Far off, the clash of sovereign wills
   May shake the earth.

The nimble circuit of the wheel,
The uncertain poise of merchant weal,
Heaven of famine, fire and steel
   When nations fall;
These, heedful, from afar I feel—
   I mark them all.

But not, my friend, not these I sing,
My voice shall fill a narrower ring.
Tired souls, that flag upon the wing,
   I seek to cheer:
Brave wines to strengthen hope I bring,
   Life’s cantineer!

Some song that shall be suppling oil
To weary muscles strained with toil,
Shall hearten for the daily moil,
   Or widely read
Make sweet for him that tills the soil
   His daily bread.

Such songs in my flushed hours I dream
(High thought) instead of armour gleam
Or warrior cantos ream by ream
   To load the shelves—
Songs with a lilt of words, that seem
   To sing themselves.