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.