Time's lapse it is, made audible,--
The murmur of the earth's large shell.
In a sad blueness beyond rhyme
It ends: sense, without thought, can pass
No stadium further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No stagnance that death wins,--it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Always enduring at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.

Fancies at Leisure

I. In Spring

The sky is blue here, scarcely with a stain
Of grey for clouds: here the young grasses gain
A larger growth of green over this splinter
Fallen from the ruin. Spring seems to have told Winter
He shall not freeze again here. Tho' their loss
Of leaves is not yet quite repaired, trees toss
Sprouts from their boughs. The ash you called so stiff
Curves, daily, broader shadow down the cliff.

II. In Summer

How the rooks caw, and their beaks seem to clank!
Let us just move out there,--(it might be cool
Under those trees,) and watch how the thick tank
By the old mill is black,--a stagnant pool
Of rot and insects. There goes by a lank
Dead hairy dog floating. Will Nature's rule
Of life return hither no more? The plank
Rots in the crushed weeds, and the sun is cruel.

III. The Breadth of Noon

Long time I lay there, while a breeze would blow
From the south softly, and, hard by, a slender
Poplar swayed to and fro to it. Surrender
Was made of all myself to quiet. No
Least thought was in my mind of the least woe:
Yet the void silence slowly seemed to render
My calmness not less calm, but yet more tender,
And I was nigh to weeping.--'Ere I go,'
I thought, 'I must make all this stillness mine;
The sky's blue almost purple, and these three
Hills carved against it, and the pine on pine
The wood in their shade has. All this I see
So inwardly I fancy it may be
Seen thus of parted souls by _their_ sunshine.'

IV. Sea-Freshness

Look at that crab there. See if you can't haul
His backward progress to this spar of a ship
Thrown up and sunk into the sand here. Clip
His clipping feelers hard, and give him all
Your hand to gripe at: he'll take care not fall:
So,--but with heed, for you are like to slip
In stepping on the plank's sea-slime. Your lip--
No wonder--