s'},
like an angelic sword plunged into the gloom, when the tender twilight
with its one chrysolite star, grows aware, and the light and shade
make up a spell, and the forests by their mystery, and sound,
and silence, mingle together two human lives forever
{`By the Fireside'}, when the apparition of the moon-rainbow
appears gloriously after storm, and Christ is in his heaven
{`Christmas Eve'}, when to David the stars shoot out the pain
of pent knowledge and in the grey of the hills at morning there dwells
a gathered intensity {`Saul'},--then nature rises from her sweet ways
of use and wont, and shows herself the Priestess, the Pythoness,
the Divinity which she is. Or rather, through nature, the Spirit of God
addresses itself to the spirit of man."--Edward Dowden.

39.

Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!
How a sound shall quicken content to bliss,
Or a breath suspend the blood's best play,
And life be a proof of this!

40.

Had she willed it, still had stood the screen
So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her:
I could fix her face with a guard between,
And find her soul as when friends confer,
Friends--lovers that might have been.

41.

For my heart had a touch of the woodland time,
Wanting to sleep now over its best.
Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime,
But bring to the last leaf no such test!
"Hold the last fast!" runs the rhyme.

42.

For a chance to make your little much,
To gain a lover and lose a friend,
Venture the tree and a myriad such,
When nothing you mar but the year can mend:
But a last leaf--fear to touch!

43.

Yet should it unfasten itself and fall
Eddying down till it find your face
At some slight wind--best chance of all!
Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place
You trembled to forestall!

44.

Worth how well, those dark gray eyes,
That hair so dark and dear, how worth
That a man should strive and agonize,
And taste a veriest hell on earth
For the hope of such a prize!

45.

You might have turned and tried a man,
Set him a space to weary and wear,
And prove which suited more your plan,
His best of hope or his worst despair,
Yet end as he began.