Hawking the meadows swiftly he flits, While the small mouse atrembling sits With tiny eye of fear upcast Until his brooding shape be past, Hiding her where the moonbeams beat, Casting black shadows in the wheat. Now all is still: the field-man is Lapped deep in slumbering silentness. Not a leaf stirs, but clouds on high Pass in dim flocks across the sky, Puffed by a breeze too light to move Aught but these wakeful sheep above. O what an arch of light now spans These fields by night no longer Man's! Their ancient Master is abroad, Walking beneath the moonlight cold: His presence is the stillness, He Fills earth with wonder and mystery. NIGHT All from the light of the sweet moon Tired men lie now abed; Actionless, full of visions, soon Vanishing, soon sped. The starry night aflock with beams Of crystal light scarce stirs: Only its birds--the cocks, the streams, Call 'neath heaven's wanderers. All silent; all hearts still; Love, cunning, fire fallen low: When faint morn straying on the hill Sighs, and his soft airs flow. THE UNIVERSE I heard a little child beneath the stars Talk as he ran along To some sweet riddle in his mind that seemed A-tiptoe into song. In his dark eyes lay a wild universe,-- Wild forests, peaks, and crests; Angels and fairies, giants, wolves and he Were that world's only guests. Elsewhere was home and mother, his warm bed:-- Now, only God alone Could, armed with all His power and wisdom, make Earths richer than his own. O Man!--thy dreams, thy passions, hopes, desires!-- He in his pity keep A homely bed where love may lull a child's Fond Universe asleep! GLORIA MUNDI Upon a bank, easeless with knobs of gold, Beneath a canopy of noonday smoke, I saw a measureless Beast, morose and bold, With eyes like one from filthy dreams awoke, Who stares upon the daylight in despair For very terror of the nothing there. This beast in one flat hand clutched vulture-wise A glittering image of itself in jet, And with the other groped about its eyes To drive away the dreams that pestered it; And never ceased its coils to toss and beat The mire encumbering its feeble feet. Sharp was its hunger, though continually It seemed a cud of stones to ruminate, And often like a dog let glittering lie This meatless fare, its foolish gaze to sate; Once more convulsively to stoop its jaw, Or seize the morsel with an envious paw. Indeed, it seemed a hidden enemy Must lurk within the clouds above that bank, It strained so wildly its pale, stubborn eye, To pierce its own foul vapours dim and dank; Till, wearied out, it raved in wrath and foam, Daring that Nought Invisible to come. Ay, and it seemed some strange delight to find In this unmeaning din, till, suddenly, As if it heard a rumour on the wind, Or far away its freer children cry, Lifting its face made-quiet, there it stayed, Till died the echo its own rage had made.