But all the swifter will he go Through the pale, scattered asphodels, Down mote-hung dusk of olive dells, To where the ancient basins throw Fleet threads of blue and trembling zones Of gold upon the temple stones. There noon keeps just a twilight trace; Twixt love and hate, and death and birth, No man may choose; nor sobs nor mirth May enter in that haunted place. All day the fountain sphynx lets drip Slow drops of silence from her lip. To hold the porch-roof slender girls Of milk-white marble stand arow; Doubt never blurs a single brow, And never the noon's faintness curls From their expectant hush of pride The lips the god has glorified. But these things he will barely view, Or if he stay to heed them, still But as the lark the lights that spill From out the sun it soars unto, Where, past the splendors and the heats, The sun's heart's self forever beats. For wide the brazen doors will swing Soon as his sandals touch the pave; The anxious light inside will wave And tremble to a lunar ring About the form that lieth prone Before the dreadful altar-stone. She will not look or speak or stir, But with drowned lips and cheeks death-white Will lie amid the pool of light, Until, grown faint with thirst of her, He shall bow down his face and sink Breathless beneath the eddying brink. Then a swift music will begin, And as the brazen doors shut slow, There will be hurrying to and fro, And lights and calls and silver din, While through the star-freaked swirl of air The god's sweet cruel eyes will stare. HEART'S WILD-FLOWER To-night her lids shall lift again, slow, soft, with vague desire, And lay about my breast and brain their hush of spirit fire, And I shall take the sweet of pain as the laborer his hire. And though no word shall e'er be said to ease the ghostly sting, And though our hearts, unhoused, unfed, must still go wandering, My sign is set upon her head while stars do meet and sing. Not such a sign as women wear who make their foreheads tame With life's long tolerance, and bear love's sweetest, humblest name, Nor such as passion eateth bare with its crown of tears and flame. Nor such a sign as happy friend sets on his friend's dear brow When meadow-pipings break and blend to a key of autumn woe, And the woodland says playtime 's at end, best unclasp hands and go. But where she strays, through blight or blooth, one fadeless flower she wears, A little gift God gave my youth,--whose petals dim were fears, Awes, adorations, songs of ruth, hesitancies, and tears. O heart of mine, with all thy powers of white beatitude, What are the dearest of God's dowers to the children of his blood? How blow the shy, shy wilding flowers in the hollows of his wood? HARMONICS