And at the threshold of your palaces

I linger long on every crystal stair
Bridging the fathomless gulfs of ecstasy ;
And tremble as before the temple doors,

While from within them sweeps a breeze of sound
Dissolving heaven with sweetness, and the soul
Swoons, and is changed within it, and forgets;
And lift no hand in haste toward the veil,
Lest the unutterable splendour strike

This starry purple into distance cold.

The heart of heaven is open everywhere,
Hearkening in infinite hush of ravishment,
And in the midst my soul, stayed in her flight,
Hovers in the clear darkness of suspense,
Listening intent and saying, Not yet, not yet;
Be not too quick in coming; leave me still
The shadowy glories of the unfulfilled,
The faint far snatches echoing worlds away.
I ask not whither ye are leading me,
For, filled with the delight of following,
No room is left me to desire the end.

I am in the open, many miles away,
High on the slope of a long shelving down,
And under me the wide and waving weald

Grows wider with each upward step I take.

The lapsing hours have changed the starry face Of the clear sky, and up to regnant height

The sovereign moon has floated through the midst
And fronting still, still level to my eyes
Those seven fair faces shining full on me.
All silent, in a calm and raptured dream
Slumbers the earth, lying with upturned face
All one white rippling smile, that far away
In bosoming woods and fields and villages
Sinks to the ring of shadowy under-world.
Stretching in long uninterrupted light,
Low at my feet the delicate hillside turf
Glitters in threads of silver all the way.
All the wide world is empty, save of peace
And utter radiance of the heavenly height;

And the cool air that wavers fitfully

Across the flood of glory golden-white

Breathes through me with a rapture swift and strong The thrill of that disclosure presently.

Above me, to the vanishing of space,

Heaven beyond heaven arises, thronging through,

Ready to bear the wingèd soul away;

While earth enlarges her horizon bound,

And grows more lovely and more lustrous pale
For every instant of the blissful night.

E

I know I am all alone on the white down;
My eyes are to the stars, and following them
My feet are half forgetful that they climb;
But something sudden on the smooth ascent
Draws my looks downwards in a moment's pause,
And there I see a flower felicitous

Spread to the moon-spread low, a coronal
Of pointed leaves, and in the midst one stalk
Of starry faces, the auricula.

In the strong moonlight all their open eyes,
The dusky richness of their velvet hues,
Startle me with distinctness, and I stand
Amazed and lost in a new wonderland
Of strange delight. What mystic influence
Already has begun to change for me
The surface of the world?—for never yet
A flower like this was seen on hills like these.
And stooping down to pluck it I perceive
That in a moment all the grass has grown
Alive with springing of them everywhere,
Full-blown and wide-awake; I cannot step
For fear of treading on them strewn so thick ;
They almost speak, they look up in my face,

As the clustered stars look down.-Ah! what is

this? . . .

A MID MAY MYSTERY.

A SILVER dream of waters to the East,
A golden dream of meadows to the West,
A rosy dream of blossoms to the South,
A shadowy dream of elm-trees to the North.

The East lies charmed and stilly through the white
Midnight wherein the maythorns meet the moon;
The strewn pear-blossom and the daisies light
The long grass and the edges of the pool.

The West lies all one sloping spread of gold
Down the wide meadows to the setting sun;
A sea of buttercups, beneath whose fold
The earth lies warm and laughs with living light.

A little gust of wind may stir and pass
Among the wilderness of apple-trees;
All the deep sky above, all the deep grass
Below, is filled with bloom innumerable.

Tall stands the wall of trees within the line
Of its own shadow, ever dusk and dim,
Down at its feet th' unfading laurustine,
And the blue iris weave a mist of flowers.

Four walls of dreams, and what should they uphold But the blue dome of heaven in all its height? And what of sunny space should they enfold

But all the open glory of the day?

And yet not so,

‚—a measured sanctuary

Is theirs, and passing feet may enter in;

The gates of it are seen as men go by,

And some have dwelling there, and some have life.

They do indeed encompass and enclose
A very pleasure-house of cedar shade,
With gleam of lawns and crimson tulip-glows,
And flutter of white robes and youthful feet.