The grey, phosphorescent, pellucid advance Of the luminous purpose of God, shines out Where the lofty trees athwart stream chance To shake flakes of its shadow about. The subtle, steady rush of the whole Grey foam-mist of advancing God, As He silently sweeps to His somewhere, his goal, Is heard in the grass of the sod. Is heard in the windless whisper of leaves In the silent labours of men in the fields, In the downward dropping of flimsy sheaves Of cloud the rain skies yield. In the tapping haste of a fallen leaf, In the flapping of red-roof smoke, and the small Foot-stepping tap of men beneath These trees so huge and tall. For what can all sharp-rimmed substance but catch In a backward ripple, God's purpose, reveal For a moment His mighty direction, snatch A spark beneath His wheel. Since God sweeps onward dim and vast, Creating the channelled vein of Man And Leaf for His passage, His shadow is cast On all for us to scan. Ah listen, for Silence is not lonely: Imitate the magnificent trees That speak no word of their rapture, but only Breathe largely the luminous breeze. MORNING WORK A gang of labourers on the piled wet timber That shines blood-red beside the railway siding Seem to be making out of the blue of the morning Something faery and fine, the shuttles sliding, The red-gold spools of their hands and faces shuttling Hither and thither across the morn's crystalline frame Of blue: trolls at the cave of ringing cerulean mining, And laughing with work, living their work like a game. TRANSFORMATIONS I =The Town= Oh you stiff shapes, swift transformation seethes About you: only last night you were A Sodom smouldering in the dense, soiled air; To-day a thicket of sunshine with blue smoke-wreaths. To-morrow swimming in evening's vague, dim vapour Like a weeded city in shadow under the sea, Beneath an ocean of shimmering light you will be: Then a group of toadstools waiting the moon's white taper. And when I awake in the morning, after rain, To find the new houses a cluster of lilies glittering In scarlet, alive with the birds' bright twittering, I'll say your bond of ugliness is vain. II =The Earth= Oh Earth, you spinning clod of earth, And then you lamp, you lemon-coloured beauty; Oh Earth, you rotten apple rolling downward, Then brilliant Earth, from the burr of night in beauty As a jewel-brown horse-chestnut newly issued:-- You are all these, and strange, it is my duty To take you all, sordid or radiant tissued. III =Men=