Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense In smoke of worship when the heart is stillest, A praying more than prayer: “Great good have I, Till it be greater good to lay it by; Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence, For these smile on me from the thing Thou willest!” [Illustration] _Saint Florent-le-Vieil_ THE spacious open vale, the vale of doom, Is full of autumn sunset; blue and strong The semicirque of water sweeps among Her lofty acres, each a martyr’s tomb; And slowly, slowly, melt into the gloom Two little idling clouds, that look for long Like roseleaf bodies of two babes in song Correggio left to flush a convent room. Dear hill deflowered in the frantic war! In my day, rather, have I seen thee blest With pastoral roofs to break the darker crest Of apple-woods by many-islèd Loire, And fires that still suffuse the lower west, Blanching the beauty of thine evening star. [Illustration] _Hylas_ JAR in arm, they bade him rove Thro’ the alder’s long alcove, Where the hid spring musically Gushes to the ample valley. (There ’s a bird on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: “Keep--young!” but who knows how?) Down the woodland corridor, Odors deepened more and more; Blossomed dogwood, in the briers, Struck her faint delicious fires; Miles of April passed between Crevices of closing green, And the moth, the violet-lover, By the wellside saw him hover. Ah, the slippery sylvan dark! Never after shall he mark Noisy ploughmen drinking, drinking, On his drownèd cheek down-sinking; Quit of serving is that wild, Absent, and bewitchèd child, Unto action, age, and danger, Thrice a thousand years a stranger. Fathoms low, the naiads sing In a birthday welcoming; Water-white their breasts, and o’er him, Water-gray, their eyes adore him. (There ’s a bird on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: “Keep--young!” but who knows how?) [Illustration] _Nocturne_ THE sun that hurt his lovers from on high Is fallen; she more merciful is nigh, The blessèd one whose beauty’s even glow Gave never wound to any shepherd’s eye. Above our pausing boat in shallows drifted, Alone her plaintive form ascends the sky. O sing! the water-golds are deepening now, A hush is come upon the beechen bough; She shines the while on thee, as saint to saint Sweet interchanged adorings may allow: Sing, dearest, with that lily throat uplifted; They are so like, the holy Moon and thou! [Illustration] _The Kings_ A MAN said unto his angel: “My spirits are fallen thro’, And I cannot carry this battle, O brother! what shall I do? “The terrible Kings are on me, With spears that are deadly bright, Against me so from the cradle Do fate and my fathers fight.” Then said to the man his angel: “Thou wavering, foolish soul, Back to the ranks! What matter To win or to lose the whole,