Or should in sleep glad visions come: Sick, in an alien land, for home Would be my eyes in their bright beam; Awake, we know 'tis not a dream; Asleep, some devil in the mind Might truest thoughts with false enwind. Life is a mockery if death Have the least power men say it hath. As to a hound that mewing waits, Death opens, and shuts to, his gates; Else even dry bones might rise and say,-- "'Tis _ye_ are dead and laid away." Innocent children out of nought Build up a universe of thought, And out of silence fashion Heaven: So, dear, is this poor dying even, Seeing thou shall be touched, heard, seen, Better than when dust stood between. FOREBODING Thou canst not see him standing by-- Time--with a poppied hand Stealing thy youth's simplicity, Even as falls unceasingly His waning sand. He will pluck thy childish roses, as Summer from her bush Strips all the loveliness that was; Even to the silence evening has Thy laughter hush. Thy locks too faint for earthly gold, The meekness of thine eyes, He will darken and dim, and to his fold Drive, 'gainst the night, thy stainless, old Innocencies; Thy simple words confuse and mar, Thy tenderest thoughts delude, Draw a long cloud athwart thy star, Still with loud timbrels heaven's far Faint interlude. Thou canst not see; I see, dearest; O, then, yet patient be, Though love refuse thy heart all rest, Though even love wax angry, lest Love should lose _thee_? VAIN FINDING Ever before my face there went Betwixt earth's buds and me A beauty beyond earth's content, A hope--half memory: Till in the woods one evening-- Ah! eyes as dark as they, Fastened on mine unwontedly, Grey, and dear heart, how grey! NAPOLEON "What is the world, O soldiers? It is I: I, this incessant snow, This northern sky; Soldiers, this solitude Through which we go Is I." ENGLAND No lovelier hills than thine have laid My tired thoughts to rest: No peace of lovelier valleys made Like peace within my breast. Thine are the woods whereto my soul, Out of the noontide beam, Flees for a refuge green and cool And tranquil as a dream. Thy breaking seas like trumpets peal; Thy clouds--how oft have I Watched their bright towers of silence steal Into infinity! My heart within me faults to roam In thought even far from thee: Thine be the grave whereto I come, And thine my darkness be. TRUCE Far inland here Death's pinions mocked the roar Of English seas; We sleep to wake no more, Hushed, and at ease; Till sound a trump, shore on to echoing shore, Rouse from a peace, unwonted then to war, Us and our enemies. EVENING When twilight darkens, and one by one, The sweet birds to their nests have gone; When to green banks the glow-worms bring Pale lamps to brighten evening; Then stirs in his thick sleep the owl Through the dewy air to prowl.