The Listeners | Page 3

bell-mouths blown,
Till the bright clouds that towered on high

Seemed to re-echo cry with cry.
Still swang the clappers to and fro,

When, in the far-spread fields below,
I saw a ploughman with his
team
Lift to the bells and fix on them
His distant eyes, as if he
would
Drink in the utmost sound he could;
While near him sat his
children three,
And in the green grass placidly
Played undistracted
on, as if
What music earthly bells might give
Could only faintly stir
their dream,
And stillness make more lovely seem.
Soon night hid
horses, children, all
In sleep deep and ambrosial;
Yet, yet it seemed
from star to star,
Welling now near, now faint and far,
Those
echoing bells rang on in dream,
And stillness made even lovelier
seem.
THE SCARECROW
All winter through I bow my head
Beneath the driving rain;
The
North wind powders me with snow
And blows me black again;
At
midnight 'neath a maze of stars
I flame with glittering rime,
And
stand, above the stubble, stiff
As mail at morning-prime.
But when
that child, called Spring, and all
His host of children, come,

Scattering their buds and dew upon
Those acres of my home,
Some
rapture in my rags awakes;
I lift void eyes and scan
The skies for
crows, those ravening foes,
Of my strange master, Man.
I watch
him striding lank behind

His clashing team, and know
Soon will the
wheat swish body high
Where once lay sterile snow;
Soon shall I
gaze across a sea
Of sun-begotten grain,
Which my unflinching
watch hath sealed
For harvest once again.
NOD
Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,

Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
Old Nod, the shepherd,

goes.
His drowsy flock streams on before him,
Their fleeces charged with
gold,
To where the sun's last beam leans low
On Nod the shepherd's
fold.
The hedge is quick and green with briar,
From their sand the conies
creep;
And all the birds that fly in heaven
Flock singing home to
sleep.
His lambs outnumber a noon's roses,
Yet, when night's shadows fall,

His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon,
Misses not one of all.
His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,
The waters of no-more-pain,

His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars,
'Rest, rest, and rest again.'
THE BINDWEED
The bindweed roots pierce down
Deeper than men do lie,
Laid in
their dark-shut graves
Their slumbering kinsmen by.
Yet what frail thin-spun flowers
She casts into the air,
To breathe
the sunshine, and
To leave her fragrance there.
But when the sweet moon comes,
Showering her silver down,

Half-wreathèd in faint sleep,
They droop where they have blown.
So all the grass is set,
Beneath her trembling ray,
With buds that
have been flowers,
Brimmed with reflected day.
WINTER
Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless
bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.
The rayless sun,
Day's journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light


On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.
Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle,
and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.
THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY
There blooms no bud in May
Can for its white compare
With snow
at break of day,
On fields forlorn and bare.
For shadow it hath rose,
Azure, and amethyst;
And every air that
blows
Dies out in beauteous mist.
It hangs the frozen bough
With flowers on which the night

Wheeling her darkness through
Scatters a starry light.
Fearful of its pale glare
In flocks the starlings rise;
Slide through
the frosty air,
And perch with plaintive cries.
Only the inky rook,
Hunched cold in ruffled wings,
Its snowy nest
forsook,
Caws of unnumbered Springs.
NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER
Not any flower that blows
But shining watch doth keep;
Every
swift changing chequered hour it knows
Now to break forth in beauty;
now to sleep.
This for the roving bee
Keeps open house, and this
Stainless and
clear is, that in darkness she
May lure the moth to where her nectar is.
Lovely beyond the rest
Are these of all delight:--
The tiny
pimpernel that noon loves best,
The primrose palely burning through
the night.
One 'neath day's burning sky
With ruby decks her place,
The other

when Eve's chariot glideth by
Lifts her dim torch to light that
dreaming face.
ESTRANGED
No one was with me there--
Happy I was--alone;
Yet from the
sunshine suddenly
A joy was gone.
A bird in an empty house
Sad echoes makes to ring,
Flitting from
room to room
On restless wing:
Till from its shades he flies,
And leaves forlorn and dim
The
narrow solitudes
So strange to him.
So, when with fickle heart
I joyed in the passing day,
A presence
my mood estranged
Went grieved away.
THE TIRED CUPID
The thin moonlight with trickling ray,
Thridding the boughs of silver
may,
Trembles in beauty, pale and cool,
On folded flower, and
mantled pool.
All in a haze the rushes lean--
And he--he sits, with
chin between
His two cold hands; his bare feet set
Deep in the
grasses, green and wet.
About his head a hundred rings
Of gold
loop down to meet his wings,
Whose feathers arched their stillness
through
Gleam with slow-gathering drops of dew.
The mouse-bat
peers; the stealthy vole
Creeps from the covert of its hole;
A
shimmering moth its pinions furls,
Grey in the moonshine of his curls;

'Neath the faint stars the night-airs stray,
Scattering the fragrance