"A thousand of our years to him Are but the night, are but the day, Wherein he rests from cyclic toil Or chants the song of starry sway. "He falls asleep: the Shadowy Fount Fills all our heart with dreams of light: He wakes to ancient spheres, and we Through iron ages mourn the night. We will not wander in the night But in a darkness more divine Shall join the Father Light of Lights And rule the long-descended line." Even then a vasty twilight fell: Wavered in air the shadowy towers: The city like a gleaming shell, Its azures, opals, silvers, blues, Were melting in more dreamy hues. We feared the falling of the night And hurried more our headlong flight. In one long line the towers went by; The trembling radiance dropt behind, As when some swift and radiant one Flits by and flings upon the wind The rainbow tresses of the sun. And then they vanished from our gaze Faded the magic lights, and all Into a Starry Radiance fell As waters in their fountain fall. We knew our time-long journey o'er And knew the end of all desire, And saw within the emerald glow Our Father like the white sun-fire. We could not say if age or youth Were on his face: we only burned To pass the gateways of the Day, The exiles to the heart returned. He rose to greet us and his breath, The tempest music of the spheres, Dissolved the memory of earth, The cyclic labour and our tears. In him our dream of sorrow passed, The spirit once again was free And heard the song the Morning-Stars Chant in eternal revelry. This was the close of human story; We saw the deep unmeasured shine, And sank within the mystic glory They called of old the Dark Divine. Well it is gone now, The dream that I chanted: On this side the dawn now I sit fate-implanted. But though of my dreaming The dawn has bereft me, It all was not seeming For something has left me. I fell in some other World far from this cold light The Dream Bird, my brother, Is rayed with the gold light. I too in the Father Would hide me, and so, Bright Bird, to foregather With thee now I go. --December 15, 1896 A New Earth "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims within his ken." I who had sought afar from earth The faery land to greet, Now find content within its girth, And wonder nigh my feet. To-day a nearer love I choose And seek no distant sphere, For aureoled by faery dews The dear brown breasts appear. With rainbow radiance come and go The airy breaths of day, And eve is all a pearly glow With moonlit winds a-play. The lips of twilight burn my brow, The arms of night caress: Glimmer her white eyes drooping now With grave old tenderness. I close mine eyes from dream to be The diamond-rayed again, As in the ancient hours ere we Forgot ourselves to men.