ALTER EGO

    All the morn a spirit gay
    Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
    ’Tis but hide and seek we play
    In and out the courts of Time.

    Fairy lover, when my feet
    Through the tangled woodland go,
    ’Tis thy sunny fingers fleet
    Fleck the fire dews to and fro.

    In the moonlight grows a smile
    Mid its rays of dusty pearl—­
    ’Tis but hide and seek the while,
    As some frolic boy and girl.

    When I fade into the deep
    Some mysterious radiance showers
    From the jewel-heart of sleep
    Through the veil of darkened hours.

    Where the ring of twilight gleams
    Round the sanctuary wrought,
    Whispers haunt me—­in my dreams
    We are one yet know it not.

    Some for beauty follow long
    Flying traces; some there be
    Seek thee only for a song: 
    I to lose myself in thee.

KRISHNA

‘I am Beauty itself among beautiful things.’ 
Bhagavad-Gita

The East was crowned with snow-cold bloom
And hung with veils of pearly fleece: 
They died away into the gloom,
Vistas of peace—­and deeper peace.

And earth and air and wave and fire
In awe and breathless silence stood;
For One who passed into their choir
Linked them in mystic brotherhood.

    Twilight of amethyst, amid
    Thy few strange stars that lit the heights,
    Where was the secret spirit hid? 
    Where was Thy place, O Light of Lights?

    The flame of Beauty far in space—­
    Where rose the fire:  in thee? in me? 
    Which bowed the elemental race
    To adoration silently?

SYMBOLISM

    Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,
    Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings
    From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,
    Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things;
    Clothing the vast with a familiar face;
    Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race.

    Wondrously near and clear the great warm fires
    Stare from the blue; so shows the cottage light
    To the field labourer whose heart desires
    The old folk by the nook, the welcome bright
    From the house-wife long parted from at dawn—­
    So the star villages in God’s great depths withdrawn.

    Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,
    Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze,
    We rise, but by the symbol charioted,
    Through loved things rising up to Love’s own ways
    By these the soul unto the vast has wings
    And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things.

SUNG ON A BY-WAY

    What of all the will to do? 
    It has vanished long ago,
    For a dream-shaft pierced it through
    From the Unknown Archer’s bow.