ndrils through a jealous world.
From palace wall or cottage door, these blooms,
In careless disarray of white and red,
Will peer through open windows into rooms
Where princes sit, or women kneading bread.

Along these tender twilights where they lean,
They send no whispered gossip down at all,
Of cradle songs, or counsels of a queen,
To roots indifferent if that upper wall
Be loud with battles and the clash of Kings,
Or quiet, where a mother sits and sings.

AUDIENCE

I am aware of crowds behind the night,
Of eager faces just beyond our eyes,
Immured in silences and lost to light,
Piteous and pleading with a hurt surprise
That we who live will never turn a head
To speak them any answer, or to hark
The pregnant whispered wisdom of the Dead,
The futile finger pointed in the Dark.

THE DANCE

When we had gone from out the blazing room,
Into the cool and leafy dark, at last,
And found a sweetness in the summer gloom,
A holy quiet on the ways we passed,--
We turned, with only half-regretful glance
At silhouettes beyond that square of light,--
Content to leave the laughter and the dance,
For green, cool chambers of the summer night.

I think that we shall not be otherwise,
When we have quit all rooms where once we went,--
But gazing back with grave, untroubled eyes,
Shall find ourselves so quietly content,
We shall not wish to alter that estate,
Nor seek again the dance we left of late.

ON HEARING A BIRD SING AT NIGHT

Out of what ancient summer of soft airs
Was spun this song that stills each listening leaf--
This silver, moon-bright minstreling that fares
Through all old time, still laden with a grief?
Some hidden bird, by turrets and black bars,
Where one had languished for her face was fair,
Heard thus some troubadour beneath the stars,
And learned this song of vanished hands and hair.

Who knows what golden story first gave birth
To this old music that is heavy-sweet
With gardens long forgotten of the earth,
With passion that was silver wings and feet,
To cross the silent centuries and be heard,
Calling again in this dream-troubled bird!

DAWN

The thousand muffled noises of the dawn:
The drowsy stir of birds, surprised from sleep,
The faint applause of leaves above the lawn,