You know the grey of dew on grass
     Ere with the young sun fired,
     And you know well the thirst one has
     For the coming and desired.

     Quick in our ring she leapt, and gave
     Her hand to left, to right. 
     No claim on her had any, save
     To feed the joy of sight.

     For man and maid a laughing word
     She tossed, in notes as clear
     As when the February bird
     Sings out that Spring is near.

     Of what befell behind that scone,
     Let none who knows reveal. 
     In ballad days she might have been
     A heroine rousing steel.

     On us did she bestow the hour,
     And fixed it firm in thought;
     Her spirit like a meadow flower
     That gives, and asks for nought.

     She seemed to make the sunlight stay
     And show her in its pride. 
     O she was fair as a beech in May
     With the sun on the yonder side.

     There was more life than breath can give,
     In the looks in her fair form;
     For little can we say we live
     Until the heart is warm.

     Fragments

     Open horizons round,
     O mounting mind, to scenes unsung,
     Wherein shall walk a lusty Time: 
     Our Earth is young;
     Of measure without bound;
     Infinite are the heights to climb,
     The depths to sound.

     A wilding little stubble flower
     The sickle scorned which cut for wheat,
     Such was our hope in that dark hour
     When nought save uses held the street,
     And daily pleasures, daily needs,
     With barren vision, looked ahead. 
     And still the same result of seeds
     Gave likeness ’twixt the live and dead.

     From labours through the night, outworn,
     Above the hills the front of morn
     We see, whose eyes to heights are raised,
     And the world’s wise may deem us crazed. 
     While yet her lord lies under seas,
     She takes us as the wind the trees’
     Delighted leafage; all in song
     We mount to her, to her belong.

     This love of nature, that allures to take
     Irregularity for harmony
     Of larger scope than our hard measures make,
     Cherish it as thy school for when on thee
     The ills of life descend.

     Il Y A cent ans

     That march of the funereal Past behold;
     How Glory sat on Bondage for its throne;
     How men, like dazzled insects, through the mould
     Still worked their way, and bled to keep their own.

     We know them, as they strove and wrought and yearned;
     Their hopes, their fears; what page of Life they wist: 
     At whiles their vision upon us was turned,
     Baffled by shapes limmed loosely on thick mist.

     Beneath the fortress bulk of Power they bent
     Blunt heads, adoring or in shackled hate,
     All save the rebel hymned him; and it meant
     A world submitting to incarnate Fate.