as passed!

A weft of sky, and castles stare
High from a wizard shore,
Sun-arrowed, tower-strong;
Gold parapets in air
Down-pour, down-pour
Sea-falls of peri song;
Then earth, the dragon's lair;
Cave eyes and burning breath;
And the lance the Grail lords bore
This day flies swift and fair,
This day of the dragon's death.

Must doff the wind-wreath, find thee lone?
Put on meek age's hood?
Feel but the frost within the dawn?
Wrap courage in a swaddling mood?
His bare throat flings
All-powered nay;
The world, his vast, unfingered lyre,
Stirs in her thousand strings;
Lit with redemptive flame
Burns miracle desire,
And dedicated day
Is long as freedom's dream.

Youth of the lance, youth of the lyre,
How far, how far shalt go?
Where will the halting be?
Sun-courier, whose roads of fire
Bridge God's delay,
The hearts that know thee, ah, they know,
Ageless in clay,
Sole immortality!

TO MIRIMOND

(HER BIRTHDAY, IN DECEMBER)

Dost think that Time, to whom stars vainly sue,
Will for thy beauty keep one fixed place?
Or that he may, o'er-weighed with seasons due,
Forget one Spring where veinlet tendrils lace
Rose over rose to make this flower, thy face?
Look round thee now, dear dupe of sweet hey-day!
Of what once blooming joy canst thou find trace
Save in the bosom of a cold decay?
What violet of Summer's yester sway
Usurps these clouds to throne her slender moon?
Look on the wrinkling year, the shrunken way,
The wintry bier of all that gaudy shone,
And gather love ere loveliness wear pall,
If thou, when all is gone, wouldst still have all.

SOROLLA

"I am fleet," said the joy of the sun,
Trembling then on the breast
Of the summer, white, still;
"I am fleet, I am gone!"
Smiling came one
With brush and a will,
Undelaying, unpressed,
And the glancing gold of the tremulous sun
Lingers for man, inescapable, won.

"Not here, nor yet there,"
Cried the waves that fled,
"Shall ye set us a snare.
Motion is breath of us,
Stillness is death of us;
We live as we run,
We pause and are sped!"
Laughing came one
With brush and a will,
And the waves never die and are nevermore still.

"I pass," said the light
On the joy