Not even an echo in my heart Tells me the courts thy feet trod last, Bare as a leafless wood it is, The summer past. My inmost mind is like a book The reader dulls with lassitude, Wherein the same old lovely words Sound poor and rude. Yet through this vapid surface, I Seem to see old-time deeps; I see, Past the dark painting of the hour, Life's ecstasy. Only a moment; as when day Is set, and in the shade of night, Through all the clouds that compassed her, Stoops into sight Pale, changeless, everlasting Dian, Gleams on the prone Endymion, Troubles the dulness of his dreams: And then is gone. REMEMBRANCE The sky was like a waterdrop In shadow of a thorn, Clear, tranquil, beautiful, Dark, forlorn. Lightning along its margin ran; A rumour of the sea Rose in profundity and sank Into infinity. Lofty and few the elms, the stars In the vast boughs most bright; I stood a dreamer in a dream In the unstirring night. Not wonder, worship, not even peace Seemed in my heart to be: Only the memory of one, Of all most dead to me. TREACHERY She had amid her ringlets bound Green leaves to rival their dark hue; How could such locks with beauty bound Dry up their dew, Wither them through and through? She had within her dark eyes lit Sweet fires to burn all doubt away; Yet did those fires, in darkness lit, Burn but a day, Not even till twilight stay. She had within a dusk of words A vow in simple splendour set; How, in the memory of such words, Could she forget That vow--the soul of it? IN VAIN I knocked upon thy door ajar, While yet the woods with buds were grey; Nought but a little child I heard Warbling at break of day. I knocked when June had lured her rose To mask the sharpness of its thorn; Knocked yet again, heard only yet Thee singing of the morn. The frail convolvulus had wreathed Its cup, but the faint flush of eve Lingered upon thy Western wall; Thou hadst no word to give. Once yet I came; the winter stars Above thy house wheeled wildly bright; Footsore I stood before thy door-- Wide open into night. THE MIRACLE Who beckons the green ivy up Its solitary tower of stone? What spirit lures the bindweed's cup Unfaltering on? Calls even the starry lichen to climb By agelong inches endless Time? Who bids the hollyhock uplift Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high; Fling wide her petals--silent, swift, Lovely to the sky? Since as she kindled, so she will fade, Flower above flower in squalor laid. Ever the heavy billow rears All its sea-length in green, hushed wall; But totters as the shore it nears, Foams to its fall; Where was its mark? on what vain quest Rose that great water from its rest? So creeps ambition on; so climb Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high, Forgets his birth, small space, brief time, That he shall die; Dreams blindly in his dark, still air; Consumes his strength; strips himself bare;