And rising, with both arms stretched forth, and

head

Bowed earthward, and not turning once I ran ;

And what things saw me as I raced by them,

What hands plucked at my dress, what light wings brushed

My face, what waters in my hearing seethed,

I know not, till I reached familiar lands,

And saw grey clouds slow gathering for the night, Above sweet fields, whence the June mowers

strolled

Homewards with girls who chatted down the lane.

Is this the secret lying round the world?

A Dread One watching with unlidded eye

Slow century after century from his heaven,

And that great lord, the worm of the red plain,
Cold in mid sun, strenuous, untameable,

Coiling his solitary strength along

Slow century after century, conscious each

How in the life of his Arch-enemy

He lives, how ruin of one confounds the pair,— Is this the eternal dual mystery?

One Source of being, Light, or Love, or Lord,
Whose shadow is the brightness of the world,
Still let thy dawns and twilights glimmer pure
In flow perpetual from hill to hill,

Still bathe us in thy tides of day and night;
Wash me at will a weed in thy free wave,

Drenched in the sun and air and surge of Thee.

THE MORNING STAR.

I.

Backward betwixt the gates of steepest heaven, Faint from the insupportable advance

Of light confederate in the East, is driven

The starry chivalry, and helm and lance, Which held keen ward upon the shadowy plain, Yield to the stress and stern predominance

Of Day; no wanderer morning-moon awane Floats through dishevelled clouds, exanimate, In disarray, with gaze of weariest pain ;

O thou sole Splendour, sprung to vindicate Night's ancient fame, thou in dread strife serene,

With back-blown locks, joyous yet desperate

Flamest; from whose pure ardour Earth doth win

High passionate pangs, thou radiant paladin.

II.

Nay; strife must cease in song: far-sent and clear Piercing the silence of this summer morn

I hear thy swan-song rapturous; I hear

Life's ecstasy; sharp cries of flames which burn With palpitating joy, intense and pure, From altars of the universe, and yearn

In eager spires; and under these the sure

Strong ecstasy of Death, in phrase too deep For thought, too bright for dim investiture

Of mortal words, and sinking more than sleep Down holier places of the soul's delight;

Cry, through the quickening dawn, to us who

creep

'Mid dreams and dews of the dividing night, Thou searcher of the darkness and the light.

III.

I seek thee, and thou art not; for the sky
Has drawn thee in upon her breast to be
A hidden talisman, while light soars high,

Virtuous to make wide heaven's tranquillity More tranquil, and her steadfast truth more true, Yea even her overbowed infinity

Of tenderness, when o'er wet woods the blue Shows past white edges of a sundering cloud More infinitely tender. Day is new,

Night ended; how the hills are overflowed With spaciousness of splendour, and each tree Is touched; only not yet the lark is loud

Since viewless still o'er city and plain and sea Vibrates thy spirit-wingèd ecstasy.