By Still Waters | Page 3

road whereupon we trod became as holy ground:
The eve
was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound: And burning
multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind, Too swift and
hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind. Twin gates unto that
living world, dark honey-coloured eyes The lifting of whose lashes
flushed the face with paradise-- Beloved, there I saw within their ardent
rays unfold
The likeness of enraptured birds that flew from deeps of
gold To deeps of gold within my breast to rest or there to be
Transfigured in the light, or find a death to life in me. So love, a
burning multitude, a seraph wind which blows From out the deep of
being to the deep of being goes:
And sun and moon and starry fires
and earth and air and sea Are creatures from the deep let loose who
pause in ecstasy, Or wing their wild and heavenly way until again they
find The ancient deep and fade therein, enraptured, bright and blind.
REFLECTIONS

How shallow is this mere that gleams!
Its depth of blue is from the
skies;
And from a distant sun the dreams
And lovely light within
your eyes.
We deem our love so infinite
Because the Lord is everywhere,
And
love awakening is made bright
And bathed in that diviner air.
We go on our enchanted way
And deem our hours immortal hours,

Who are but shadow kings that play
With mirrored majesties and
powers.
THE DAWN OF DARKNESS
Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil. In the
valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along Over fields and
over hedgerows little quivering drops of song. All adown the pale blue
mantle of the mountains far away Stream the tresses of the twilight
flying in the wake of day. Night comes; soon alone shall fancy follow
sadly in her flight Where the fiery dust of evening, shaken from the feet
of light, Thrusts its monstrous barriers between the pure, the good, the
true, That our weeping eyes may strain for, but shall never after view.
Only yester eve I watched with heart at rest the nebulæ Looming far
within the shadowy shining of the Milky Way; Finding in the stillness
joy and hope for all the sons of men; Now what silent anguish fills a
night more beautiful than then. For earth's age of pain has come, and all
her sister planets weep, Thinking of her fires of morning passing into
dreamless sleep. In this cycle of great sorrow for the moments that we
last We too shall be linked by weeping to the greatness of her past: But
the coming race shall know not, and the fount of tears shall dry, And
the arid heart of man be arid as the desert sky.
So within my mind the
darkness dawned and round me everywhere Hope departed with the
twilight, leaving only dumb despair.
NATURAL MAGIC
We are tired who follow after
Phantasy and truth that flies:
You

with only look and laughter
Stain our hearts with richest dyes.
When you break upon our study
Vanish all our frosty cares;
As the
diamond deep grows ruddy,
Filled with morning unawares.
With the stuff that dreams are made of
But an empty house we build:

Glooms we are ourselves afraid of,
By the ancient starlight chilled.
All unwise in thought or duty--
Still our wisdom envies you:
We
who lack the living beauty
Half our secret knowledge rue.
Thought nor fear in you nor dreaming
Veil the light with mist about;

Joy, as through a crystal gleaming,
Flashes from the gay heart out.
Pain and penitence forsaking,
Hearts like cloisters dim and grey,
By
your laughter lured, awaking
Join with you the dance of day.
IN THE WOMB
Still rests the heavy share on the dark soil:
Upon the black mould
thick the dew-damp lies:
The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil

The ploughboy to the morning lifts his eyes.
The unbudding hedgerows dark against day's fires
Glitter with
gold-lit crystals: on the rim
Over the unregarding city's spires
The
lonely beauty shines alone for him.
And day by day the dawn or dark enfolds
And feeds with beauty eyes
that cannot see
How in her womb the mighty mother moulds
The
infant spirit for eternity.
FORGIVENESS
At dusk the window panes grew grey;
The wet world vanished in the
gloom;
The dim and silver end of day
Scarce glimmered through
the little room.

And all my sins were told; I said
Such things to her who knew not
sin--
The sharp ache throbbing in my head,
The fever running high
within.
I touched with pain her purity;
Sin's darker sense I could not bring:

My soul was black as night to me:
To her I was a wounded thing.
I needed love no words could say;
She drew me softly nigh her chair,

My head upon her knees to lay,
With cool hands that caressed my
hair.
She sat with hands as if to