SIGHT

The world is bright with beauty, and its days
  Are filled with music; could we only know
  True ends from false, and lofty things from low;
Could we but tear away the walls that graze
Our very elbows in life’s frosty ways;
  Behold the width beyond us with its flow,
  Its knowledge and its murmur and its glow,
Where doubt itself is but a golden haze.

Ah brothers, still upon our pathway lies
  The shadow of dim weariness and fear,
Yet if we could but lift our earthwood eyes
  To see, and open our dull eyes to hear,
  Then should the wonder of this world draw near
And life’s innumerable harmonies.

AN OLD LESSON FROM THE FIELDS

Even as I watched the daylight how it sped
  From noon till eve, and saw the light wind pass
  In long pale waves across the flashing grass,
And heard through all my dreams, wherever led,
The thin cicada singing overhead,
  I felt what joyance all this nature has,
  And saw myself made clear as in a glass,
How that my soul was for the most part dead.

Oh, light, I cried, and, heaven, with all your blue,
  Oh, earth, with all your sunny fruitfulness,
    And ye, tall lillies, of the wind-vexed field,
    What power and beauty life indeed might yield,
  Could we but cast away its conscious stress,
Simple of heart, becoming even as you.

WINTER-THOUGHT

The wind-swayed daisies, that on every side
  Throng the wide fields in whispering companies,
  Serene and gently smiling like the eyes
Of tender children long beatified,
The delicate thought-wrapped buttercups that glide
  Like sparks of fire above the wavering grass,
  And swing and toss with all the airs that pass,
Yet seem so peaceful, so preoccupied;

These are the emblems of pure pleasures flown,
  I scarce can think of pleasure without these. 
Even to dream of them is to disown
  The cold forlorn midwinter reveries,
Lulled with the perfume of old hopes new-blown,
  No longer dreams, but dear realities.

DEEDS

’Tis well with words, oh masters, ye have sought,
  To turn men’s eyes yearning to the great and true,
  Yet first take heed to what your own hands do;
By deeds not words the souls of men are taught;
Good lives alone are fruitful; they are caught
  Into the fountain of all life (wherethrough
  Men’s souls that drink are broken or made new)
Like drops of heavenly elixir, fraught
  With the clear essence of eternal youth. 
  Even one little deed of weak untruth
    Is like a drop of quenchless venom cast,
A liquid thread, into life’s feeding stream,
Woven forever with its crystal gleam,
    Bearing the seed of death and woe at last.