The Confidant

The wood is talking in its sleep.
Have a care, trees!
You are heard by the brook and the breeze
And the listening lake;
And some of the birds are awake,
I know.
Green, garrulous wood, I trusted you so!

To One Unnamed

The stars of last night and the wind of last night
Are west of the Painted Chamber and east of Cinnamon Hall.
… Though I have for my body no wings like those of the bright-coloured phœnix,
Yet I feel the harmonious heart-beat of the Sacred Unicorn.
Across the spring-wine, while it warms me, I prompt you how to bet
Where, group by group, we are throwing dice in the light of a crimson lamp;
Till the rolling of a drum, alas, calls me to my duties
And I mount my horse and ride away, like a water-plant cut adrift.

The Welcoming

Lovely for youth, the look on life's lit face,
And limitless his longing
All beckonings and beguilements to embrace.
Unseen, those spectres thronging.
Marvel, the mind's emergence innocent-eyed,
Unblemished and believing,
World welcomed he, who goes without a guide
Toward wrongs beyond retrieving.

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