O Homeland, at this hour What joys are thine? This moon What lovers in what bower Sees? and what jocund tune From smoky villages Is heard? What homely light Shines welcome through the trees? What watch-dog barks delight? What lingering linnet flings Her good-night in the air? What honeysuckle rings Her chime of fragrance there? One moment, and I see The cot, the lane, the light, The moon behind the tree, The evening turn to night; One moment know the scent Of smoke of fragrant fires, And hear the cattle pent Within the wattled byres. One moment—and I wake; The vision fades and falls; These lifeless deserts make Me adamantine walls. * * * * * III * * * * * SOUL-SCORN No cloak of cloudy wrack The mistless mystery mars, But all the desert is black Beneath the quivering stars. I hear the pinions creak Of night-birds, beating by; And lost hyaenas shriek Unto the spectral sky. The Stars, immortal Sons Of God, are full of fire; But we, rejected ones, Know heav’n but in desire. My Soul said, ‘Art thou dead? The chasm of night is riv’n; What dost thou see?’ I said, ‘The full-fired fires of heav’n.’ ‘Look not but see,’ he said. I said, ‘I know not whether They are the hosts of God Clashing their spears together. So bright the stars appear Their splendour smokes in heav’n; I think indeed I hear Their distant voices ev’n.’ He said, ‘See not but know.’ I said, ‘I cannot see; I think perhaps they go To some great victory.’ He said, ‘For ever they go, Still onward, on and on; And that is why they know The victory’s clarion.’ I said, ‘I am too weak To do more than I must.’ He said, ‘Then cease to seek And perish in the dust.’ * * * * * RESOLVE Bound in misfortune’s bands, Blindfold and brought to nought, I would reach out my hands And touch eternal thought. I cannot choose but try Behind these prison bars To measure earth and sky And know the whole of stars; And what I rede I write, Vain visions as they rise, Vain visions of the night, Unworthy others’ eyes. I said, ‘Tho’ dungeon’d here In these deep dens of night, My soul shall persevere To seek supernal light; Untainted Truth to know From that fair face of Lies Whose heav’nly features glow Like Truth’s, save in the eyes; Till, after all these years, The wisdom come unsought To see the stars as spheres And sound the bounds of thought.’