e green
And silver signals wave.

And we who sought her with the moon,
Were met by branches stirred,
And whiter grew as grew the croon
That seemed her hidden word.

"O, she would speak!" my heart-beat said;
My eyes were on the mound;
And lowlier hung my waiting head
Above the prisoning ground.

Then smiled the lad and whispered me,--
The lad who most did love;
"She stoops to us; the little tree
Is wakened from above!"

THE GAME

'Tis played with eyes; one uttered word
Would cast the game away.
As silent as a sailing bird,
The shift and change of play.

So many eyes to me are dear,
So many do me bless;
The hazel, deep as deep wood-mere
Where leaves are flutterless;

The brown that most bewildereth
With dusking, golden play
Of shadows like betraying breath
From some shy, hidden day;

The black whose torch is ever trimmed,
Let stars be soon or late;
The blue, a morning never dimmed,
Opposing Heaven to fate;

The grey as soft as farthest skies
That hold horizon rain;
Or when, steel-darkling, stoic-wise,
They bring the gods again;

And wavelit eyes of nameless glow,
Fed from far-risen streams;
But oh, the eyes, the eyes that know
The silent game of dreams!

Three times I've played. Once 'twas a child,
Lap-held, not half a year
From Heaven, looked at me and smiled,
And far I went with her.

Out past the twilight gates of birth,
And past Time's blindfold day,
Beyond the star-ring of the earth,
We found us room to play.

And once a woman, spent and old
With unavailing tears,
Who from her hair's down-tangled fold
Shook out the grey-blown years,

Sat by the trampled way alone,
And lifted eyes--what themes!
I could not pass, I sat me down
To play the game of dreams.

And once ... a poet's eyes they were,
Though earth heard not his strain;
And since he went no eyes can stir
My own to play again.

BALLAD

When I with Death have gone on quest,
And grief is mellowed in your breast;
When you do nothing fret
If jest come gently in with tea,
And Purr is stroked for want of me;
When thought robust bestirs your mind,
And with a candid start you find
The worl