III

     Life in light you glass
     When you peep and coo,
     You, my little one, mine! 
     Brooklet chirps to grass,
     Daisy looks in dew
     Up to dear sunshine.

     Woodland peace

     Sweet as Eden is the air,
     And Eden-sweet the ray. 
     No Paradise is lost for them
     Who foot by branching root and stem,
     And lightly with the woodland share
     The change of night and day.

     Here all say,
     We serve her, even as I: 
     We brood, we strive to sky,
     We gaze upon decay,
     We wot of life through death,
     How each feeds each we spy;
     And is a tangle round,
     Are patient; what is dumb
     We question not, nor ask
     The silent to give sound,
     The hidden to unmask,
     The distant to draw near.

     And this the woodland saith: 
     I know not hope or fear;
     I take whate’er may come;
     I raise my head to aspects fair,
     From foul I turn away.

     Sweet as Eden is the air,
     And Eden-sweet the ray.

     The question whither

     I

     When we have thrown off this old suit,
     So much in need of mending,
     To sink among the naked mute,
     Is that, think you, our ending? 
     We follow many, more we lead,
     And you who sadly turf us,
     Believe not that all living seed
     Must flower above the surface.

     II

     Sensation is a gracious gift,
     But were it cramped to station,
     The prayer to have it cast adrift
     Would spout from all sensation. 
     Enough if we have winked to sun,
     Have sped the plough a season;
     There is a soul for labour done,
     Endureth fixed as reason.

     III

     Then let our trust be firm in Good,
     Though we be of the fasting;
     Our questions are a mortal brood,
     Our work is everlasting. 
     We children of Beneficence
     Are in its being sharers;
     And Whither vainer sounds than Whence,
     For word with such wayfarers.

     Outer and inner

     I

     From twig to twig the spider weaves
     At noon his webbing fine. 
     So near to mute the zephyrs flute
     That only leaflets dance. 
     The sun draws out of hazel leaves
     A smell of woodland wine. 
     I wake a swarm to sudden storm
     At any step’s advance.

     II

     Along my path is bugloss blue,
     The star with fruit in moss;
     The foxgloves drop from throat to top
     A daily lesser bell. 
     The blackest shadow, nurse of dew,
     Has orange skeins across;
     And keenly red is one thin thread
     That flashing seems to swell.

     III