nd many a wan star away,
Dwelling in the chambers where the worlds were growing old.

Saw them growing old and heard them falling
Like ripe fruit when a tree is in the wind;
Saw the seraphs gather them, their clarion voices calling
In rounds of cheering labour till the orchard floor was thinned.

Saw a whole universe turn to its setting,
Old and cold and weary, gray and cold as death,
But before mine eyes were veiled in forgetting,
Something always caught my soul and held its breath.

Caught it up and held it, now I know the reason;
Governed it and soothed it, now I know why;
Nurtured it and trained it and kept it for the season
When new worlds should blossom in the springtime sky.

How have they blossomed, see the sky is like a garden!
Ah! how fresh the worlds look hanging on the slope!
Pluck one and wear it, Love, and ask the Gardener's pardon,
Pluck out the Pleiads like a spray of heliotrope.

See Aldebaran like a red rose clamber,
See brave Betelgeux pranked with poppy light;
This young earth must float in floods of amber
Glowing with a crocus flame in the dells of night.

O you cannot cheat the soul of an inborn ambition,
'Tis a naked viewless thing living in its thought,
But it mounts through errors and by valleys of contrition
Till it conquers destiny and finds the thing it sought.

Crown her with stars, this angel of our planet,
Cover her with morning, this thing of pure delight,
Mantle her with midnight till a mortal cannot
See her for the garments of the light and the night.

THE GHOST'S STORY

All my life long I heard the step
Of some one I would know,
Break softly in upon my days
And lightly come and go.

A foot so brisk I said must bear
A heart that's clean and clear;
If that companion blithe would come,
I should be happy here.

But though I waited long and well,
He never came at all,
I grew aweary of the void,
Even of the light foot-fall.

From loneliness to loneliness
I felt my spirit grope--
At last I knew the uttermost,
The loneliness of hope.

And just upon the border land,
Where flesh and spirit part,
I knew the secret foot-fall was
The beating of my heart.

NIGHT

The night is old, and all the world
Is wearied out with strife;
A long gray mist lies heavy and wan
Above the house of life.

Four stars burn up and are unquelled
By the low, shrunken moon;
Her spirit draws her down and down--
She