Would that they three could know How yet burns on in me Love--from one lost in Paradise-- For their grave courtesy. ALEXANDER It was the Great Alexander, Capped with a golden helm, Sate in the ages, in his floating ship, In a dead calm. Voices of sea-maids singing Wandered across the deep: The sailors labouring on their oars Rowed, as in sleep. All the high pomp of Asia, Charmed by that siren lay, Out of their weary and dreaming minds, Faded away. Like a bold boy sate their Captain, His glamour withered and gone, In the souls of his brooding mariners, While the song pined on. Time, like a falling dew, Life, like the scene of a dream, Laid between slumber and slumber, Only did seem.... O Alexander, then, In all us mortals too, Wax thou not bold--too bold On the wave dark-blue! Come the calm, infinite night, Who then will hear Aught save the singing Of the sea-maids clear? THE REAWAKENING Green in light are the hills, and a calm wind flowing Filleth the void with a flood of the fragrance of Spring; Wings in this mansion of life are coming and going, Voices of unseen loveliness carol and sing. Coloured with buds of delight the boughs are swaying, Beauty walks in the woods, and wherever she rove Flowers from wintry sleep, her enchantment obeying, Stir in the deep of her dream, reawaken to love. Oh, now begone sullen care--this light is my seeing; I am the palace, and mine are its windows and walls; Daybreak is come, and life from the darkness of being Springs, like a child from the womb, when the lonely one calls. THE VACANT DAY As I did walk in meadows green I heard the summer noon resound With call of myriad things unseen That leapt and crept upon the ground. High overhead the windless air Throbbed with the homesick coursing cry Of swallows that did everywhere Wake echo in the sky. Beside me, too, clear waters coursed Which willow branches, lapsing low, Breaking their crystal gliding forced To sing as they did flow. I listened; and my heart was dumb With praise no language could express; Longing in vain for him to come Who had breathed such blessedness On this fair world, wherein we pass So chequered and so brief a stay; And yearned in spirit to learn, alas, What kept him still away. THE FLIGHT How do the days press on, and lay Their fallen locks at evening down, Whileas the stars in darkness play And moonbeams weave a crown-- A crown of flower-like light in heaven, Where in the hollow arch of space Morn's mistress dreams, and the Pleiads seven Stand watch about her place. Stand watch--O days no number keep Of hours when this dark clay is blind. When the world's clocks are dumb in sleep 'Tis then I seek my kind. FOR ALL THE GRIEF For all the grief I have given with words May now a few clear flowers blow, In the dust, and the heat, and the silence of birds, Where the lonely go.