that He made,
And hope less than despair,
If Death have shores where Love runs wild
I think you might be there.

III

Re-born, re-born
From the splendid sea,
There should you awake and sing,
With every supple sweet from the head to the feet
Modelled like a wood-dove's wing,--
O, to awake, to shake away the night,
And find you happy there,
On the other side of death, with the sea-wind blowing round you,
And the scent of the thyme in your hair.

THE STRANGE GUEST

You cannot leave a new house
With any open door,
But a strange guest will enter it
And never leave it more.

Build it on a waste land,
Dreary as a sin.
Leave her but a broken gate,
And Beauty will come in.

Build it all of scarlet brick.
Work your wicked will.
Dump it on an ash-heap
Then--O then, be still.

Sit and watch your new house.
Leave an open door.
A strange guest will enter it
And never leave it more.

She will make your raw wood
Mellower than gold.
She will take your new lamps
And sell them for old.

She will crumble all your pride,
Break your folly down.
Much that you rejected
She will bless and crown.

She will rust your naked roof,
Split your pavement through,
Dip her brush in sun and moon
And colour it anew.

Leave her but a window
Wide to wind and rain,
You shall find her footsteps
When you come again.

Though she keep you waiting
Many months or years,
She shall stain and make it
Beautiful with tears.

She shall hurt and heal it,
Soften it and save,
Blessing it, until it stand
Stronger than the grave.

_You cannot leave a new house
With any open door,
But a strange guest will enter it
And never leave it more._

GHOSTS

O to creep in by candle-light,
When all the world is fast asleep,
Out of the cold winds, out of the night,
Where the nettles wave and the rains weep!
O, to creep in, lifting the latch
So quietly that no soul could hear,
And, at those embers in the gloom,
Quietly light one careful match--
You should not hear it, have no fear--
And light the candle and look round
The old familiar room;
To see the old books upon the wall
And lovingly take one down again,
And hear--O, strange to those that lay
So patiently underground--
The ticking of the clock, t