Or most loved swallow
Whom all fair days and golden musics follow?--

More sudden yet, more strange
Than magic airs on magic hills that range:--
Of one who'll steep
The soul in soft forgetfulness ere it sleep.

Yes, down the hillside road,
Where Eve's unhasty feet so gently trod,
Follow His feet
Whose leaf-like echoes make even spring more sweet.

THE SNARE

Loose me and let me go!
I am not yours.
I do not know
Your dark name ev'n, O Powers
That out of the deep rise
And wave your arms
To weave strange charms.

Though the snare of eyes
You weave for me,
As a pool lies
In wait for the moon when she
Out of the deep will rise;
And though you set
Like mist your net;

And though my feet you catch,
O dark, strange Powers,
You may not snatch
My soul, or call it yours.
Out of your snare I rise
And pass your charms,
Nor feel your harms.

You loose me and I go:
O see the arms
Spread for me! lo,
His lips break your charms.
From the deep did He rise
And round me set
His Love for net.

O HIDE ME IN THY LOVE

O hide me in Thy love, secure
From this earth-clinging meanness.
Lave my uncleanness
In Thy compassionating love!

Bury this treachery as deep
As mercy is enrooted.
My days ill-fruited
Shake till the shrivelled burden fall.

Put by those righteous arrows, Lord,
Put even Thy justice by Thee;
So I come nigh Thee
As came the Magdalen to Thy feet.

And like a heavy stone that's cast
In a pool, on Thee I throw me,
And feel o'erflow me
Ripples of pity, deep waves of love.

PRAYER TO MY LORD

If ever Thou didst love me, love me now,
When round me beat the flattering vans of life,
Kissing with rapid breath my lifted brow.
Love me, if ever, when the murmur of strife,
In each dark byway of my being creeps,
When pity and pride, passion and passion's loss
Wash wavelike round the world's eternal cross,
Till 'mid my fears a new-born love indignant leaps.

If ever Thou canst love me, love me yet,
When sweet, impetuous loves within me stir
And the frail portals of my spirit fret--
The love of love, that makes Heaven heavenlier,
The love of earth, of birds, children and light,
Love of this bitter, lovely native land....
O, love me when sick with all these I stand
And Death's far-rumoured wings beat on the lonely night.

THE TREE

Oh, like a tree
Let me grow up to Thee!