shimmer,
Fresh as a swimmer
After the dive.

Like banners unfurled
The skies dip and flourish--
The keen breezes nourish,
While the bright world

Is a ribbon unrolled
With a border of grasses;
And tansies are masses
And splotches of gold.

Still I whirl on--
Startled, a sparrow
Darts from the yarrow,
Flash--and is gone...

Faster the gleams
Die as they dazzle--
And roadsides of basil
Turn to pink streams.

Sharp as a knife
Is each perfume and color.
To feel nothing duller--
God, that were Life!

MIDNIGHT--BY THE OPEN WINDOW

How rapt the sleeping stillness of the night--
Incomparably close and vast... One might
Hear the tense silence in the little street
Reaching to heaven, where it swells and breaks
Into moon-music and star-song that makes
My senses bend and sway, as waving wheat
Trembles before the wind's majestic feet;
Trembles with happy fear and numb delight.

How sharp the silence... like a sword to smite
Brittle security and iron aches;
A soundless and imperative blast that wakes
Undreamed of powers, terrible and sweet...
While God comes down, roused to the jubilant fight;
Roused from the sleepy comfort of His seat.

THE WINE OF NIGHT

Come, drink the mystic wine of Night,
Brimming with silence and the stars,
While earth, bathed in this holy light,
Is seen without its scars.
Drink in the daring and the dews,
The calm winds and the restless gleam--
This is the draught that Beauty brews;
Drink--it is the Dream.

Drink, oh my soul, and do not yield--
These solitudes, this wild-rose air,
Shall strengthen thee, shall be thy shield,
Against a world's despair.
Oh, quaff this stirrup-cup of stars,
Trembling with hope and high desire--
Then back into the hopeless wars
With faith and fire!

INTERLUDES

_To My Wife_

_INVOCATION_

_Listen, my lute, I would turn from your militant measures.
Well have you answered the touch of intransigent fingers;
Wildly your strings have vibrated--but have you forgotten
How to make love-songs?_

_Lute, you are hot to the hand; you are tense and exultant.
Cease crying out--let me rest from the din and the battle.
Life is not only a summoning shout and a struggle,
A blow and a silence._

_Is there not vigorous peace after