RENEWAL

Strange that this body in its lifted state
Of independent will and power and lust,
Should still attest that kinship, dimmed of late,
Its ancient, honoured brotherhood with dust;--
So that when Spring is quickening in the clay,
Stirring dumb particles the way she fares,
This foolish flesh is no less moved than they,
To sweet, unreasoned happiness, like theirs.

Not seed and soil alone, but heart and mind
Are somehow swayed, till sober, earnest men,
In quick renewal with their dusty kind,
Grow foolish-fond, like lads at play again....
So April, stirring blindly through the earth,
Can move us to a blind, unthinking mirth.

RESPONDIT

Apple-tree, apple-tree, what is it worth:
Beauty and passion and red-lipped mirth,
Fashioned of fire and the blossoming earth,--
Gone in a transient spring?

Spending and spilling your wealth through the grass,
Coiner of coins that must rust and pass,--
Knowing the end is--alas, and alas!
What may a poet sing?

"Sing of the dust that is blossomy boughs,
Dust that is more than your thought allows;
Sing you for ever impossible vows
Unto the springs to be.

"Dust in the dust is for fire and birth,
Beauty and passion and red-lipped mirth,
Fashioned of dust for the blossoming earth,--
Even of you and me."

JEWELS

The sea has worn her ships like precious stones,
That marked her bosom's tremulous unrest;
And for their loss no pendant moon atones
That rides eternally upon her breast.
For sunk armadas or a little boat
She still is wistful as a jewelled queen,
Who bears the burning memory at her throat,
Of barque and sloop and brilliant brigantine.

The epic chanted to each sounding cave
Is all of fleets gone down by lonely shores,--
The shining spars, the sails, the light they gave,
Now scattered darkly on her grievous floors;--
And all the sea's long moan is like a sigh
For ruined ships remembered where they lie.

CHORUS

Always it was the old songs moved us most,
For always there were other voices near,
A silver singing threading like a ghost,
A thinner music than our ears could hear;
So that we sang more softly than we might,
As leaving room for some expected tone;
Our singing was half listening in the night,
For other singing drowned along ou