In Tara's Halls

A MAN I praise that once in Tara's Hals
Said to the woman on his knees, 'Lie still.
My hundredth year is at an end. I think
That something is about to happen, I think
That the adventure of old age begins.
To many women I have said, ''Lie still,''
And given everything a woman needs,
A roof, good clothes, passion, love perhaps,
But never asked for love; should I ask that,
I shall be old indeed.'
Thereon the man
Went to the Sacred House and stood between
The golden plough and harrow and spoke aloud


In Pearl And Gold

WHEN pearl and gold, o'er deeps of musk,
The moon curves, silvering the dusk,—
As in a garden, dreaming,
A lily slips its dewy husk
A firefly in its gleaming,—
I of my garden am a guest;
My garden, that, in beauty dressed
Of simple shrubs and oldtime flowers,
Chats with me of the perished hours,
When she companioned me in life,
Living remote from care and strife.
It says to me: 'How sad and slow
The hours of daylight come and go,
Until the Night walks here again
With moon and starlight in her train,


In the Dim Counties

In the dim counties
we take the long calm
Lilting no haziness,
sequel or psalm.

The little street wenches,
The holy and clean,
Live as good neighbours live
under the green.

Malice of sunbeam or
menace of moon
Piping shall leave us
no taste of a tune.

In the dim counties
the eyelids are dumb,
To the lean citizens
Love cannot come.

Love in the yellowing,
Love at the turn,
Love o' the cooing lip—
how should he burn?


In September

IN wood-hollows mate the swallows,
On the house-tops sparrows marry;
Where's the laggard that would tarry
When the Spring is up and doing,
And the doves of Love are cooing?
O the lovers she discovers
Heart and heart together linking!
'Tis of them, perchance, you're thinking;
In this moment's rich completeness
Tasting over bygone sweetness.
Nay, you gladden not, but sadden
At the sight of such surrender
To Love's impulse, warm and tender,
As yon couple, mingling kisses,


In Memory

Ah! fair face gone from sight,
With all its light
Of eyes that pierced the deep!
Oh human night!
Ah! fair face calm in sleep!

Ah! fair lips hushed in death!
Now their glad breath
Breathes not upon our air
Music, that saith
Love only and things fair.

Ah! lost brother! Ah! sweet
Still hands and feet!
May those feet haste to reach,
Those hands to greet
Us where love needs no speech.


In Memoriam E.S

HER love was that full love which, like a tide,
Flows in and out life's smallest gulfs and bays,
And fills with music through long summer days
Cold hearts that else would stern and dark abide.
Her smile would cheer, her faintest look could chide;
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No soul too outcast, none too lowly born,
For her kind ear; and none too high for scorn
Of mean pretence, or wrong, or foolish pride.
She loved all Nature; mountain, stream, and tree
To her were thoughts or language for the thought
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In Memoriam A. H. H. 126. Love is and was my Lord and King

Love is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend
To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.
Love is and was my King and Lord,
And will be, tho' as yet I keep
Within his court on earth, and sleep
Encompass'd by his faithful guard,
And hear at times a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.


In Making Bodies Love Could Not Express

In making bodies Love could not express
Itself, or art, unless it made them less.
O what a monster had in man been seen,
Had every thumb or toe a mountain been!
What worlds must he devour when he did eat?
What oceans drink! yet could not all his meat,
Or stature, make him like an angel shine ;
Or make his Soul in Glory more Divine.
A Soul it is that makes us truly great,
Whose little bodies make us more complete.
An understanding that is infinite,
An endless, wide, and everlasting sight,


In Loving Memory of the Late Author of Dream Songs

on their own, I call that willful, John,
but that's not judgement, only argument
such as we've had before.
I watch a shaky man climb
a cast-iron railing in my head, on
a Mississippi bluff, though I had meant
to dissuade him. I call out, and he doesn't hear.

'Fantastic! Fantastic! Thank thee, dear Lord'
is what you said we were to write on your stone,
but you go down without so much as a note.
Did you wave jauntily, like the German ace
in a silent film, to a passerby, as the paper said?


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