So well she hid, Death was at least beguiled,
Set free the grain--and lo! the sevenfold ears!

Warmed by the sun, wooed by the wind's soft word,
Under blue canopy they hold their state:
For this, ah, was it not worth while to wait
Through all the centuries of hope deferred?

What could they know who laid the seed with Death
Of this Divine fruition fixed and planned?
Love--since Life parts us--lend my hand your hand
And look with me into the eyes of faith.

For here between your hand and mine there lies
A little seed we trust to Death to keep
Through unimagined centuries of sleep
Until the day when Life shall bid it rise.

Our harvest waits us. Who knows where or how,
What worlds away, wrapped in what coil of pain?
But Life shall bid us pluck gold sevenfold grain
Grown from the love she bids us bury now.

THE BEECH TREE.

MY beautiful beech, your smooth grey coat is trimmed
With letters. Once, each stood for all things dear
To foolish lovers, dead this many a year,
Whose lamp of lighted love so soon was dimmed.
You have seen them come and go,
And heard their kisses and vows
Under your boughs,
The pitiful vows they swore,
Have seen their poor tears flow,
Have seen them part; to meet, and to return, no more!

And in old winters, through your branches bare,
The north wind drove the blue home-scented smoke
That on the glowing Christmas hearth awoke
Where the old logs, with eager flicker and flare,
Sang their low crackling song
Of peace and of good will.
The old song is still,
The old voices have died away,
The hearth has been cold so long,
And the bright faces dimmed and covered up with clay.

And summer after summer wakes to glow
The ordered pleasance with the clipped box-hedge,
The drooping lilac by the old moat's edge,
The roses, that throw you kisses from below,
The orchard pink and white,
The sedge's whispered words,
The nesting birds,
All these return to revel round your feet.
And in the untroubled night
The nightingale still sings, the jasmine still is sweet.

My beautiful beech, I carve upon you here
The master-letter which begins her name
Through whom, to me, the royal summer came,
And nightingale and rose, and all things dear.
And, in some far-off time,
I shall come here, weary and old,
When the hearth in my heart is cold
And the birds that nest there flown;
I will rememb