And the wind that beat
Dull wings of pain
On the seas without.
All night a Voice
That broke in my brain
And blew blind thoughts about.

All night they whirled
As a haunted throng
From some dim world
Where there is no rest.
All night the rain.
And the wind that swirled,
And the Infinite's lone quest.

LAD AND LASS

I heard the buds open their lips and whisper,
Whisper,
"Spring is here!"
The robins listened
And sang it loud.
The blue-birds came
In a fluttering crowd.
The cardinal preached
It high and proud,
Spring!

And thro the warm earth their song went trilling,
Trilling,
"Wake! Arise!"
The kingcups quickly
Assembled, strong.
The bluets stept
From the moss in throng.
Like fairies too
Came the cress along.
Spring!

And love in your breast, my lass, awaking--
Waking.
_Love_ was born!
Your eyes were kindled,
Your lips were warm.
Wild beauties broke
From your face and form.
And all my heart
Was a heaven-storm,
Was Spring!

THE STRONG MAN TO HIS SIRES

Tonight as I was riding on a wave
Of triumph and of glory,
A Question suddenly, as from the grave,
Rose in me, culpatory.

"Whence come to you this joyance and this strength"
It said, "this might of vision?
This will that measures all things to its length,
That cuts with calm decision?

"This blood within your veins, that is as wine
Which Destiny's self blesses.
Whence flows it, from what grape that is divine,
Or trodden from what presses?

"Do you so proud forget what hands have borne
You to the heights and crowned you?
Would you behold what sackcloth has been worn
That laurels may surround you?"...

"I would--O lips invisible! whose breath"--
I answered--"so arraigns me;
Whose voice is as a sound sent forth of Death,
And like to Death entrains me.

"I would! For if the flesh of me and soul
Are fibred with the ages,
My triumph is of them and manifold
Of all life's mystic stages."

So, forth they came--a vast ancestral line,
Upon my vision teeming,
All shapes