HE GREAT MISGIVING
"THE THINGS THAT ARE MORE EXCELLENT"
BEAUTY'S METEMPSYCHOSIS
ENGLAND MY MOTHER
NIGHT
THE FUGITIVE IDEAL
"THE FORESTERS"
SONG
COLUMBUS
THE PRINCE'S QUEST
ANGELO
THE QUESTIONER
THE RIVER
CHANGED VOICES
A SUNSET
A SONG OF THREE SINGERS
LOVE'S ASTROLOGY
THREE FLOWERS
THREE ETERNITIES
LOVE OUTLOVED
VANISHINGS
BEETHOVEN
GOD-SEEKING
SKYFARING

MISCELLANEOUS

PRELUDE

The mighty poets from their flowing store
Dispense like casual alms the careless ore;
Through throngs of men their lonely way they go,
Let fall their costly thoughts, nor seem to know.--
Not mine the rich and showering hand, that strews
The facile largess of a stintless Muse.
A fitful presence, seldom tarrying long,
Capriciously she touches me to song--
Then leaves me to lament her flight in vain,
And wonder will she ever come again.

AUTUMN

Thou burden of all songs the earth hath sung,
Thou retrospect in Time's reverted eyes,
Thou metaphor of everything that dies,
That dies ill-starred, or dies beloved and young
And therefore blest and wise,--
O be less beautiful, or be less brief,
Thou tragic splendour, strange, and full of fear!
In vain her pageant shall the Summer rear?
At thy mute signal, leaf by golden leaf,
Crumbles the gorgeous year.

Ah, ghostly as remembered mirth, the tale
Of Summer's bloom, the legend of the Spring!
And thou, too, flutterest an impatient wing,
Thou presence yet more fugitive and frail,
Thou most unbodied thing,
Whose very being is thy going hence,
And passage and departure all thy theme;
Whose life doth still a splendid dying seem,
And thou at height of thy magnificence
A figment and a dream.

Stilled is the virgin rapture that was June,
And cold is August's panting heart of fire;
And in the storm-dismantled forest-choir
For thine own elegy thy winds attune
Their wild and wizard lyre:
And poignant grows the charm of thy decay,
The pathos of thy beauty, and the sting,
Thou parable of greatness vanishing!
For me, thy woods of gold and skies of grey
With speech fantastic ring.

For me, to dreams resigned, there come and go,
'Twixt mountains draped and hooded night and morn,
Elusive notes in wandering wafture borne,
From undiscoverable lips that blow
An immaterial horn;
And spectral seem thy winter-boding trees,
Thy ruinous bowers and drifted foliage wet--
Past and Future in sad bridal met,
O voice