_R.L.S.: A.D. Mdcccxciv_

WHEN from the vista of the Book I shrink, From lauded pens that earn ignoble wage Begetting nothing joyous, nothing sage, Nor keep with Shakespeare's use one golden link; When heavily my sanguine spirits sink To read too plain on each impostor page Only of kings the broken lineage,-- Well for my peace if then on thee I think,

Louis, our priest of letters, and our knight With whose familiar baldric Hope is girt, From whose young hands she bears the Grail away. All glad, all great! Truer because thou wert, I am and must be; and in thy known light Go down to dust, content with this my day.

A Footpath Morality

ALONG the Hills, height unto height Tosses the dappled light, Rills in a torrent flow, And cuckoo calls beyond the third hedgerow. Young winds nothing can quell Scale the wild-chestnut citadel, Again to make Its thousand faëry white pagodas shake. Up many a lane The blue vervain A coverlid hath featly spread For the bees' bed, That those tired sylvan thieves May lie most soft on the sweet and scalloped leaves. And by to-morrow morn Bright agrimony, in the thickets born, Will high uphold Each cinquefoil of plain gold; Dogwood in white will hood herself apace, And betony flaunt a varied gypsy mace, And copper pimpernel, true as a clock, On some waste common, by a rock Her small dark-centred wheel draw in Long, long ere dusk begin.

This day Of infinite May Is far more fitly yours than ours, O spirit-bodied flowers! What heart disordered sore Comes through the greenwood door, Shall for your sake Find sap and soil and dew, and shall not break; And hearts beneath no ban Will in your sight some penance do for man, Poor lagging man, content to be Sick with the impact of eternity, Who might keep step with you in the low grass, Best part of one strange pageant made in joy to pass! Not ye, not ye, the privilege disown To flourish fair and fall fair, and be strewn Deep in that Will of God, where blend The origin of beauty and the end.

The Light of the House

BEYOND the cheat of Time, here where you died, you live; You pace the garden walk, secure and sensitive; You linger on the stair: Love's lonely pulses leap! The harpsichord is shaken, the dogs look up from sleep.

Here, after all the years, you keep the heirdom still; The youth and joy in you achieve their olden will, Unbidden, undeterred, with waking sense adored; And still the house is happy that hath so dear a lord.

To every inmate heart, confirmed in cheer you brought, Your name is as a spell midway of speech and thought, And to a wonted guest (not awestruck heretofore), The sunshine that was you floods all the open door.

An Outdoor Litany

Donec misereatur nostri.

THE spur is red upon the briar, The sea-kelp whips the wave ashore; The wind shakes out the coloured fire From lamps a-row on the sycamore; The bluebird with his flitting note Shows to wild heaven his wedding-coat; The mink is busy; herds again Go hillward in the honeyed rain; The midges meet. I cry to Thee Whose heart Remembers each of these: Thou art My God who hast forgotten me!

Bright from the mast, a scarf unwound, The lined gulls in the offing ride; Along an edge of marshy ground The shad-bush enters like a bride. Yon little clouds are washed of care That climb the blue New England air, And almost merrily withal The hyla tunes at evenfall His oboe in a mossy tree. So too, Am I not Thine? Arise, undo This fear Thou hast forgotten me.

Happy the vernal rout that come To their due offices to-day, And strange, if in Thy mercy's sum, Excluded man alone decay. I ask no triumph, ask no joy, Save leave to live, in law's employ. As to a weed, to me but give Thy sap! lest aye inoperative Here in the Pit my strength shall be: And still Help me endure the Pit, until Thou wilt not have forgotten me.

Of Joan's Youth

I WOULD unto my fair restore A simple thing: The flushing cheek she had before! Out-velveting No more, no more, On our sad shore, The carmine grape, the moth's auroral wing.

Ah, say how winds in flooding grass Unmoor the rose; Or guileful ways the salmon pass To sea, disclose: For so, alas, With Love, alas, With fatal, fatal Love a girlhood goes.

In a Brecon Valley

Patulis ubi vallibus errans Subjacet aëriis montibus Isca pater. H.V. Ad Posteros.