all brief and lovely things,
The fine and futile passions that we bear,
Haunt the bright wreck of your too fragile wings,
And win a pity for you, ended there,--
Like us, hurled backward to the final shade,
From mad adventures for a moon or maid.

MYSTIC

For Something glimpsed upon the topmost hill,
For Something glinting down a country lane,
Where apple-blossoms shimmer white and spill
A ghostly shower close along the rain,--
For Something guessed beyond the hedge or tree,
Hinted and hid behind the evening star,
I am made captive and am never free
Of Something that is neither near nor far.

A waking through the windy shapes of grass,
A trembling as of light along a bough,--
These are for footprints and a way to pass,
To follow after and to make a vow,--
To seek past glamours that are hourly spent,
And find but fainting lights down ways she went.

LEVIATHANS

You who have seen the foam upon bright wrecks
Of stately ships that never come to port,
Where sea-things crawl upon those sunken decks,
And fishes through those cabins take their sport,----
There where at last the gilded, gay saloon
Turns watery cavern for the spawn of seas,
And spars, once splendid, rot beneath the moon
That once was glad to sail with such as these,--

Let never word of pity pass your lips:
For these were proud in ways you cannot know,
And pride is slow to die in ruined ships
Who can but dream that some day they will go,
Their wounds all healed, their clean strength whole again,
Monarch of seas, marvel of moons and men.

INVIOLATE

I would be dumb before the evening star,
And no light word should stir upon my lips
For autumn dusks where dying embers are,
For evening seas and slow, returning ships.
I would be hushed before the face I love,
Rising in star-like quiet close to mine,
Lest all the beauty thought is dreaming of
Be rudely shaken and be spilled like wine.

For present loveliness there is no speech,
A word may wrong a flower or a face,
And stars that swim beyond our stuttering reach
Are safer in some golden, silent place....
Only when these are broken, or pass by,
Wonder and worship speak ... or sing ... or cry.

MANUSCRIPTS

As some monastic scrivener in his cell,
Sensing a chill along the stony