My world I note ere fancy comes,
     Minutest hushed observe: 
     What busy bits of motioned wits
     Through antlered mosswork strive. 
     But now so low the stillness hums,
     My springs of seeing swerve,
     For half a wink to thrill and think
     The woods with nymphs alive.

     IV

     I neighbour the invisible
     So close that my consent
     Is only asked for spirits masked
     To leap from trees and flowers. 
     And this because with them I dwell
     In thought, while calmly bent
     To read the lines dear Earth designs
     Shall speak her life on ours.

     V

     Accept, she says; it is not hard
     In woods; but she in towns
     Repeats, accept; and have we wept,
     And have we quailed with fears,
     Or shrunk with horrors, sure reward
     We have whom knowledge crowns;
     Who see in mould the rose unfold,
     The soul through blood and tears.

     Nature and life

     I

     Leave the uproar:  at a leap
     Thou shalt strike a woodland path,
     Enter silence, not of sleep,
     Under shadows, not of wrath;
     Breath which is the spirit’s bath
     In the old Beginnings find,
     And endow them with a mind,
     Seed for seedling, swathe for swathe. 
     That gives Nature to us, this
     Give we her, and so we kiss.

     II

     Fruitful is it so:  but hear
     How within the shell thou art,
     Music sounds; nor other near
     Can to such a tremor start. 
     Of the waves our life is part;
     They our running harvests bear: 
     Back to them for manful air,
     Laden with the woodland’s heart! 
     That gives Battle to us, this
     Give we it, and good the kiss.

     Dirge in woods

     A wind sways the pines,
     And below
     Not a breath of wild air;
     Still as the mosses that glow
     On the flooring and over the lines
     Of the roots here and there. 
     The pine-tree drops its dead;
     They are quiet, as under the sea. 
     Overhead, overhead
     Rushes life in a race,
     As the clouds the clouds chase;
     And we go,
     And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
     Even we,
     Even so.

     A faith on trial

     On the morning of May,
     Ere the children had entered my gate
     With their wreaths and mechanical lay,
     A metal ding-dong of the date! 
     I mounted our hill, bearing heart
     That had little of life save its weight: 
     The crowned Shadow poising dart
     Hung over her:  she, my own,
     My good companion, mate,
     Pulse of me:  she who had shown
     Fortitude quiet as Earth’s
     At the shedding of leaves.  And around