So has there come the
gust at South-west flung
By sudden volt on eves
of freezing mist,
When sister snowflake
sister snowdrop kissed,
And one passed out,
and one the bell-head hung.
Union in disseverance
Sunset worn to its last
vermilion he;
She that star overhead
in slow descent:
That white star with
the front of angel she;
He undone in his rays
of glory spent
Halo, fair as the bow-shot
at his rise,
He casts round her,
and knows his hour of rest
Incomplete, were the
light for which he dies,
Less like joy of the
dove that wings to nest.
Lustrous momently, near
on earth she sinks;
Life’s full throb
over breathless and abased:
Yet stand they, though
impalpable the links,
One, more one than the
bridally embraced.
Song in the songless
They have no song, the
sedges dry,
And still they sing.
It is within my breast
they sing,
As I pass by.
Within my breast they
touch a string,
They wake a sigh.
There is but sound of
sedges dry;
In me they sing.
The burden of strength
If that thou hast the
gift of strength, then know
Thy part is to uplift
the trodden low;
Else in a giant’s
grasp until the end
A hopeless wrestler
shall thy soul contend.
The main regret
[Written for the Charing Cross Album]
I
Seen, too clear and
historic within us, our sins of omission
Frown when the Autumn
days strike us all ruthlessly bare.
They of our mortal diseases
find never healing physician;
Errors they of the soul,
past the one hope to repair.
II
Sunshine might we have
been unto seed under soil, or have scattered
Seed to ascendant suns
brighter than any that shone.
Even the limp-legged
beggar a sick desperado has flattered
Back to a half-sloughed
life cheered by the mere human tone.
Alternation
Between the fountain
and the rill
I passed, and saw the
mighty will
To leap at sky; the
careless run,
As earth would lead
her little son.
Beneath them throbs
an urgent well,
That here is play, and
there is war.
I know not which had
most to tell
Of whence we spring
and what we are.
Forest history
I
Beneath the vans of
doom did men pass in.
Heroic who came out;
for round them hung
A wavering phantom’s
red volcano tongue,
With league-long lizard
tail and fishy fin:
II
Old Earth’s original
Dragon; there retired
To his last fastness;
overthrown by few.
Him a laborious thrust
of roadway slew.
Then man to play devorant
straight was fired.


