In the long dust, apart.

"Immortal?" No--it could not be,
Spirit with flesh must die.
Tho' heart should pray and hope make endless plea,
Reason would still outcry.

She died. They wrapped her in the dust--
I heard the dull clod's dole,
And then I knew she lived--that death's dark lust
Could never touch her soul!

LOVE'S WAY TO CHILDHOOD

We are not lovers, you and I,
Upon this sunny lane,
But children who have never known
Love's joy or pain.

The trees we pass, the summer brook,
The bird that o'er us darts--
We do not know 'tis they that thrill
Our childish hearts.

The earth-things have no name for us,
The ploughing means no more
Than that they like to walk the fields
Who plough them o'er.

The road, the wood, the heaven, the hills
Are not a World to-day--
But just a place God's made for us
In which to play.

AUTUMN

I know her not by fallen leaves
Or resting heaps of hay;
Or by the sheathing mists of mauve
That soothe the fiery day.

I know her not by plumping nuts,
By redded hips and haws,
Or by the silence hanging sad
Under the wind's sere pause.

But by her sighs I know her well--
They are like Sorrow's breath;
And by this longing, strangely still,
For something after death.

SHINTO

(MIYAJIMA, JAPAN, 1905)

Lowly temple and torii,
Shrine where the spirits of wind and wave
Find the worship and glory we
Give to the one God great and grave--

Lowly temple and torii,
Shrine of the dead, I hang my prayer
Here on your gates--the story see
And answer out of the earth and air.

For I am Nature's child, and you
Were by the children of Nature built.
Ages have on you smiled--and dew
On you for ages has been spilt--

Till you are beautiful as Time
Mossy and mellowing ever makes:
Wrapped as you are in lull--or rhyme
Of sounding drum that sudden breaks.

This is my prayer then, this: that I
Too may reverence all of life,
Lose no power and miss no high
Awe, of a world with wonder rife!

That I may build in spirit fair
Temples and torii on each place
That I have loved--Oh, hear it, Air,
Ocean and Earth, and grant your grace!

MAYA

(HIROSHIMA, JAPAN, 1905)

Pa