Again ... again! The faint sounds rise and fail. So far the enchanted tree, the song so low... A drowsy thrush? A waking nightingale? Silence. We do not know. IN ABSENCE My lovely one, be near to me to-night. For now I need you most, since I have gone Through the sparse woodland in the fading light, Where in time past we two have walked alone, Heard the loud nightjar spin his pleasant note, And seen the wild rose folded up for sleep, And whispered, though the soft word choked my throat, Your dear name out across the valley deep. Be near to me, for now I need you most. To-night I saw an unsubstantial flame Flickering along those shadowy paths, a ghost That turned to me and answered to your name, Mocking me with a wraith of far delight. ... My lovely one, be near to me to-night. THE GLOW-WORM The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies, And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs, Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers, Shining steadily with a green light, the glow-worm lies. We regard it; and this hill and all the other hills That fall in folds to the river, very smooth and steep, And the hangers and brakes that the darkness thickly fills Fade like phantoms round the light, and night is deep, so deep,-- That all the world is emptiness about the still flame, And we are small shadows standing lost in the huge night. We gather up the glow-worm, stooping with dazzled sight, And carry it to the little enclosed garden whence we came, And place it on the short grass. Then the shadowy flowers fade, The walls waver and melt and the houses disappear And the solid town trembles into insubstantial shade Round the light of the burning glow-worm, steady and clear. THE CATACLYSM When a great wave disturbs the ocean cold And throws the bottom waters to the sky, Strange apparitions on the surface lie, Great battered vessels, stripped of gloss and gold, And, writhing in their pain, sea-monsters old, Who stain the waters with a bloody dye, With unaccustomed mouths bellow and cry And vex the waves with struggling fin and fold. And with these too come little trivial things Tossed from the deeps by the same casual hand; A faint sea flower, dragged from the lowest sand, That will not undulate its luminous wings In the slow tides again, lies dead and swings Along the muddy ripples to the land. A HOLLOW ELM What hast thou not withstood, Tempest-despising tree, Whose bloat and riven wood Gapes now so hollowly, What rains have beaten thee through many years, What snows from off thy branches dripped like tears? Calmly thou standest now Upon thy sunny mound; The first spring breezes flow Past with sweet dizzy sound; Yet on thy pollard top the branches few Stand stiffly out, disdain to murmur too.