Dome of Many-Coloured Glass | Page 4

and reds,
The

sparkle and coolness of snow
Was blown from the mountain beds.
Across a deep-sunken stream
The pink of blossoming trees,
And
from windless appleblooms
The humming of many bees.
The air was of rose and gold
Arabesqued with the song of birds

Who, swinging unseen under leaves,
Made music more eager than
words.
Of a sudden, aslant the road,
A brightness to dazzle and stun,
A
glint of the bluest blue,
A flash from a sapphire sun.
Blue-birds so blue, 't was a dream,
An impossible, unconceived hue,

The high sky of summer dropped down
Some rapturous ocean to
woo.
Such a colour, such infinite light!
The heart of a fabulous gem,

Many-faceted, brilliant and rare.
Centre Stone of the earth's diadem!
. . . . .
Centre Stone of the Crown of the World,
"Sincerity" graved
on your youth!
And your eyes hold the blue-bird flash,
The
sapphire shaft, which is truth.
Petals
Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our
heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only
watch their glad, early start.
Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of
our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,

We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,

Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay

While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance
still stays.

Venetian Glass
As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea
Far out of sight of land, his
mind intent
Upon the sailing of his little boat,
On tightening ropes
and shaping fair his course,
Hears suddenly, across the restless sea,

The rhythmic striking of some towered clock,
And wakes from
thoughtless idleness to time:
Time, the slow pulse which beats
eternity!
So through the vacancy of busy life
At intervals you cross
my path and bring
The deep solemnity of passing years.
For you I
have shed bitter tears, for you
I have relinquished that for which my
heart
Cried out in selfish longing. And to-night
Having just left you,
I can say: "'T is well.
Thank God that I have known a soul so true,

So nobly just, so worthy to be loved!"
Fatigue
Stupefy my heart to every day's monotony,
Seal up my eyes, I would
not look so far,
Chasten my steps to peaceful regularity,
Bow down
my head lest I behold a star.
Fill my days with work, a thousand calm necessities
Leaving no
moment to consecrate to hope,
Girdle my thoughts within the dull
circumferences
Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's
scope.
Give me dreamless sleep, and loose night's power over me,
Shut my
ears to sounds only tumultuous then,
Bid Fancy slumber, and steal
away its potency,
Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.
Let each day pass, well ordered in its usefulness,
Unlit by sunshine,
unscarred by storm;
Dower me with strength and curb all foolish
eagerness --
The law exacts obedience. Instruct, I will conform.
A Japanese Wood-Carving

High up above the open, welcoming door
It hangs, a piece of wood
with colours dim.
Once, long ago, it was a waving tree
And knew
the sun and shadow through the leaves
Of forest trees, in a thick
eastern wood.
The winter snows had bent its branches down,
The
spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,
Summer had run
like fire through its veins,
While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,

And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.
Dark midnight
storms had roared and crashed among
Its branches, breaking here and
there a limb;
But every now and then broad sunlit days
Lovingly
lingered, caught among the leaves.
Yes, it had known all this, and yet
to us
It does not speak of mossy forest ways,
Of whispering pine
trees or the shimmering birch;
But of quick winds, and the salt,
stinging sea!
An artist once, with patient, careful knife,
Had
fashioned it like to the untamed sea.
Here waves uprear themselves,
their tops blown back
By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue

And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.
Among the flashing
waves are two white birds
Which swoop, and soar, and scream for
very joy
At the wild sport. Now diving quickly in,
Questing some
glistening fish. Now flying up,
Their dripping feathers shining in the
sun,
While the wet drops like little glints of light,
Fall pattering
backward to the parent sea.
Gliding along the green and foam-flecked
hollows,
Or skimming some white crest about to break,
The spirits
of the sky deigning to stoop
And play with ocean in a summer mood.

Hanging above the high, wide open door,
It brings to us in quiet,
firelit room,
The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes,
Where
heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll,
And seabirds scream in
wanton happiness.
A Little Song
When you, my Dear, are away, away,
How wearily goes the creeping
day.
A year drags after morning, and night
Starts another year of
candle light.
O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon!
Grant me, I beg
of you, this boon.

Whirl round the earth as never sun
Has his diurnal journey run.
And,
Moon, slip past the ladders of air
In a single flash, while your
streaming hair
Catches the stars and pulls them down
To shine on
some slumbering Chinese town.
O Kindly Sun! Understanding Moon!

Bring