I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
   Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
   Alter his interval. 
But not a flower or song I ponder is
   My own, but memory’s. 
I shall be silent in those days desired
   Before a world inspired. 
O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases
   Earth, thy familiar daisies.

The poet mused upon the dusky height,
   Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart.  I watched, a space,
   The meaning of his face: 
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
   Hid in his grey young eyes. 
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,
   And wonder for his voice. 
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
   But to divine his lyre? 
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,
   But he is lord of his.

PARTED

Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,—­
   My friend of friends, whom I shall miss. 
   He is not banished, though, for this,—­
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.

Though I shall walk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore. 
   He must not watch my resting-place
   But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?

I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain? 
   His tears must not disturb my heart,
   But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?

Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;
   Joy is not gone from summer skies,
   Nor innocence from children’s eyes,
And all these things are part of him.

He is not banished, for the showers
Yet wake this green warm earth of ours. 
   How can the summer but be sweet? 
   I shall not have him at my feet,
And yet my feet are on the flowers.

REGRETS

As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour
   Out by the low sand spaces,
The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore
   With lingering embraces,—­

So in the tide of life that carries me
   From where thy true heart dwells,
Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee
   With lessening farewells;

Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets;
   A care half lost in cares;
The saddest of my verses; dim regrets;
   Thy name among my prayers.

I would the day might come, so waited for,
   So patiently besought,
When I, returning, should fill up once more
   Thy desolated thought;

And fill thy loneliness that lies apart
   In still, persistent pain. 
Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart,
   As the tide comes again,

And brims the little sea-shore lakes, and sets
   Seaweeds afloat, and fills
The silent pools, rivers and rivulets
   Among the inland hills?