_Like_ smoke that vanishes on the morning breeze Are passed the first beginnings of the world, When time was even as a bud still curled, And scarce the limit set of lands and seas; Like smoke, like smoke the composite auguries Of Hebrew and of Hellene are all furled, Fulfilled or else forgot, and idly hurled This way or that way, as the great winds please: Aye, and like smoke of this delicious herb Brought by strange ways the curious mind may guess, From where the parrot and the leopard be, My thoughts, that should be strong, the years to curb Go up, and vanish into nothingness On a blue cloud of exquisite fragrancy. A Preface for a Tale I have never told _Herein_ is nought of windy citadels Where proud kings dwell, that with an iron hand Deal war or justice: here no history Of valiant ships upon the wine-dark seas Passing strange lands and threading channels strait Between embalmed islands: here no song That men shall sing in battle and remember When they are old and grey beside the fire: Only a story gathered from the hills And the wind crying of forgotten days, A story that shall whisper, “All things change— For friends do grow indifferent, and loves Die like a dream at morning: bitterness Is the sure heritage of all men born, And he alone sees truly, who looks out From some huge aery peak, considering not Fast-walled cities, or the works of men, But turns his gaze unto the mountain-tops And the unfathomable blue of heaven That only change not with the changing years”—— A tale that shod itself with ancient shoon And wrapped its cloak, and wandered from the west. A Sonnet _There_ is a wind that takes the heart of a man, A fresh wind in the latter days of spring, When hate and war and every evil thing That the wide arches of high Heaven span Seems dust, and less to be accounted than The omened touches of a passing wing: When Destiny, that calls himself a king, Goes all forgotten for the song of Pan: For why? Because the twittering of birds Is the best music that was ever sung, Because the voice of trees finds better words Than ever poet from his heartstrings wrung: Because all wisdom and all gramarye Are writ in fields, O very plain to see. “It was all in the Black Countree” _It_ was all in the Black Countree, What time the sweet o’ the year should be, I saw a tree, all gaunt and grey, As mindful of a winter’s day: And that a lonely bird did sit Upon the topmost branch of it, Who to my thought did sweeter sing Than any minstrel of a king. To a Pianist _When_ others’ fingers touch the keys Then most doleful threnodies Chase about the air, and run Like Pandæmonium begun. Rhythm strained and false accord In a ceaseless stream are poured; Then sighs are heard, and men depart To seek the sage physician’s art, Or silence, and a little ease, When others’ fingers touch the keys.