ht, he knows not why,
Dreading the loneliness, yet shuns
The highway's casual company;

Wherefore he hastes,
The friendly gloom of ancient trees
Unheeding, and the shining wastes
Lying broad and quiet as the seas;

The beauty of night
Hating for very fear, until
Beyond the bend a lowly light
Beams single from a lowly sill;

And the poor fool,
Flying the sacred, solemn dark,
Leaves gladly the large, cool
Night for that serviceable spark;

And thankful then
To have 'scaped the peril of the way,
Turns not his timid steps again
That night, but waits the common day;--

So I, as weak,
Have fled the great hills of Thy love,
Too faint to hear what Thou dost speak,
Too feeble with fear to look above,

And hasten to win
Some flickering, brief security,
In sinful sleep or waking sin,
From the enfolding thought of Thee!

WONDER

Following upon the faint wind's fickle courses
A feather drifts and strays.
My thought after her thought
Floated--how many ways and days!

She swayed me as the wind swayeth a feather.
I was a leaf upon
Her breath, a dream within
Her dream. The dream how soon was done!

For now all's changed, not Time's change more wondrous,
I am her sun, and she
(Herself doth swear) the moon;
Or she the ship upon my sea.

How should this be? I know not; I so grossly
Mastering her spirit pure.
O, how can her bird's breast
My nervous and harsh hand endure?

Tell me if this be love indeed, fond lovers,
That high stoop to low,
Soul be to flesh subdued;
That the sun around the earth should go?

I know not: I but know that love is misery,
O'erfilled with delight.
Day follows night: her love
Is gay as day, yet strange as night.

LAMBOURN TOWN

The rain beat on me as I walked,
In the roadside it ran and muttered.
It seemed the rain to the wind talked
Of storm: in the wind the wild cloud fluttered.

Across the down, now bleak and loud,
I went and the rain ran with me.
How swift the rain, how low the cloud!
No heavenly comfort could I see,

Nor comfort of low beaming light
From any casement creeping out.
The swift rain on the patient night
Swept, and anon would great winds shout.

Rain, rain, nought else, until I turned
The thrusting shoulder of the down,
And through the mist of rain there burned
The few green lanterns of the town.

And in the rain