merald gown she wore
When the white-faced windflowers blew along the lane.

Spring will come to help me: When her waking sigh
Drifts across my sore heart all the pain will go.
How shall hearts be aching when larks are flying low,
Low across the fields of camas bluer than the sky?

I've a tryst with Spring here--maybe they'll be few
Now the world grows older--and shall I delay
Just because a Winter has stolen joy away?
What cares Spring for old joys, all her joys are new.

Maybe there'll be singing in my sorrow yet--
I have heard of such things--but, if there be not,
Still there'll be the green pool in the pasture lot,
All a-trail with willow fingers, delicate and wet.

Winter is a passing thing and Spring is always gay;
If she, too, be passing she does not weep to know it.
Time she takes to quicken seed but never time to grow it--
Naught she cares for harvest that lies so far away.

Cosmos

THE tiny thing of painted gauze that flutters in the sun
And sinks upon the breast of night with all its living done;

The unconsidered seed that from the garden blows away,
Blooming its little time to bloom in one short summer day;

The leaf the idle wind shakes down in autumn from the tree,
The grasshopper who for an hour makes gayest minstrelsy--

These--and this restless soul of mine--are one with flaming spheres
And cold, dead moons whose ghostly fires haunt unremembered years.

The Secret

IF I should tell you what I know
Of where the first primroses grow,
Betray the secrets of the lily,
Bring crocus-gold and daffodilly,
Would you tell me if charm there be
To win a maiden, willy-nilly?

I lie upon the fragrant heath,
Kin to the beating heart beneath;
The nesting plover I discover
Nor stir the scented screen above her,
Yet am I blind--I cannot find
What turns a maiden to her lover!

Through all the mysteries of May,
Initiate, I take my way--
Sure as the blithest lark or linnet
To touch the pulsing soul within it--
Yet with no art to reach Her heart,
Nor skill to teach me how to win it!

I Watch Swift Pictures

I WATCH swift pictures flash and fade
On the closed curtains of my eyes,--
A bit of river green as jade
Under green skies;

A single bird that soars and dips
Remote; a young and secret moon
Stealing to kiss some flower's lips
Too shy for noon;

A pointing tree; a lifted hill,
Sun-misted with a golden ring,--
Were these