lie
Familiar on these grass-grown, rutted ways.

This lane in May is such a haunted thing,
For all the newness of the rain-wet trees:
An old, old May, remembered of the Spring,
Returning ghostwise on such days as these,
Moves in the blowing odours where they pass,
Trailing these scattered blossoms in the grass.

FUGITIVE

Behind these falling curtains of the rain,
Beauty goes by, a phantom on the hill,
A timid fugitive beyond the lane,
In rainy silver,--and so shy and still
That only peering eyes of some hid bird,
Or furry ears that listened by a stone,
Could guess at Something neither seen nor heard,
Finding escape, and faring by, alone.

For eyes like ours, too faint a thing and fleet,
Too lightly running for such ears to hear
The stealthy going of those weightless feet;
No thrilling sight or sound of her comes near,
Only the shining grasses where they lie,
Give hint of silver slippers hasting by.

AN OLD GARDENER

He has always a wise and knowing air:
For him there is no mystery in the mould,
Where seeds put on the shimmering things they wear,
And come to birth in yellow, green, and gold.
His quizzical, grey eyes can somehow mark
The silver shaft of sunlight where it goes,
Still radiant and undarkened in the dark,
To find the seed room of the hidden rose.

For him the secret alchemies are plain;
He tells most surely how these things befall,
In words grown intimate with roots and rain;
And yet, he is so tender of it all,
So wise and kind in ways of leaf and sod,
Sometimes I think him very like to God.

THE VEIL

Here where the snow comes whitely down,
All worldiness is done;
The saintly, silent little Town
Is like a nun;

Most holy in her street and spire,
Most perfectly at rest,--
Ah, God, who knows what hid desire
Is in her breast,

Where peony or daffodil
Or wayward rose begins,
Burning her drifted bosom, still,
Like secret sins.

THE YEAR IS OLD

Day fades with fading colours from the sky,
And blue smoke blowing where the hills are gold,
Is all a tale of loveliness gone by:
Summer is ended, and the year is old,
Beauty and bloom are wet leaves in the grass,
And music is a lone wind on the hill,
Crying that all things beautiful must pass,