, at least to himself, since there
is no help else;
The Trial by Existence
and to know definitely what he thinks about the soul;
In Equal Sacrifice
about love;
The Tuft of Flowers
about fellowship;
Spoils of the Dead
about death;
Pan with Us
about art (his own);
The Demiurge's Laugh
about science.
Part III
Now Close the Windows
It is time to make an end of speaking.
A Line-storm Song
It is the autumnal mood with a difference.
October
He sees days slipping from him that were the best for what they
were.
My Butterfly
There are things that can never be the same.
Reluctance
Into My Own
ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.
Ghost House
I DWELL in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not
|