Through these pale cold days

The garden is not barredBut the boughs are heavy with snow,The flake-blossoms thickly fallAnd the hid roots sigh, ‘How long will our flowers be marred ?’Strange as a bird were dumb,Strange as a hueless leaf.As one deaf hungers to hear,Or gazes without belief,The fruit yearned ‘Fingers, come !’0, shut hands, be empty another year.

Misty, nebulous-born,Growing deeper into her morn,So man, with no sudden stride,Bloomed into pride.In the womb of the All-spiritThe universe lay ; the willBlind, an atom, lay still.The pulse of matterObeyed in aweAnd strove to flatterThe rhythmic law.But the will grew ; nature feared,And cast off the child she reared,Now her rival, instinct-led,With her own powers…

Or your gay brow,For the motion of your spiritEver moves with these.When day shall be too quiet,Deaf to youAnd your dumb smile,Untuned air shall lap the stillnessIn the old space for your voice-The voice that once could mirrorRemote depthsOf moving being,Stirred by responsive voices near,Suddenly stilled for ever.No ghost darkens the placesDark to One ;But…

The Shaper of mortal destiniesSits in that limbo of dreamless sleep,Some nothing that hath shadows deep.The world is only a small poolIn the meadows of Eternity,And men like fishes lying cool ;And the wise man and the foolIn its depths like fishes lie.When an angel drops a rodAnd he draws you to the skyWill you…

Not Paris raped tall Helen,But this incestuous worm,Who lured her vivid beautyTo his amorphous sleep.England! Famous as HelenIs thy betrothal sungTo him the shadowless,More amorous than Solomon.

Without you my ladyHow can there be Spring?I see the pink blossomsThat slept for a year;But who could have woke them,While you were not near?Birds sing to the blossoms;Blind, dreaming your pink,These blush to the songsters,Your music they think.So well had you taught them,To look and to sing;Your bloom and your music;The ways of the…