Pressing beyond to deep and gradual blues, Their lessening voices die in distance pale-- Ineffably dissolved in opal hues; Against the sky the last sweet echoes fail While all the West is quivering, fold on fold To one great voice--one vibrant peal of gold. NOON The brook flowed through a bending arch of leaves-- Flowed through an arch of leaves into the sun; But all was shadow where it left my feet-- A shade with netted ripples overrun, A brook that flowed in coolness to the sun. Beyond the arch of shadow color lay-- Vivid to narrowed eyelids, fiercely bright, And bright the happy water slipped away In gleaming pools and broken lines of light. YOUR BEAUTIFUL PASSING Across my thought has trailed your beautiful passing, As a wild bird ruffles the motionless brink of the water, Moving in gradual path on its mirror of shadow, After him streaking and trembling long ripples of silver. BY MOONLIGHT Is this the world I knew? Beneath the day It glowed with golden heat, with vivid hues-- Mountains and sky that merged in melting blues And hazy air that shimmered far away. This world is white beneath a silver sky-- White with pale brightness, luminously chill. The moon reigns queen, but faintly shining still The dim stars glimmer on the hilltops high. Here, where long grasses touch across the stream That threads with babbling laugh its narrow way, My face turned upward to pale gleams that stray Through whispering willow boughs ... I dream and dream. ONE DAY The levels where the trail began Were sown with silver-grey. We bruised the leaves with hurrying feet To wafts of strong and tarry sweet, A moment’s pleasure as we ran, Forgotten on our way. Above, along the farthest crest, In every brief and breathless rest The spice of sage was ours, Crushed from the dull and slender leaves-- The tiny yellow flowers, When day was done No more remembered than the wind and sun. THE MISSION GRAVES By man forgotten, Nature remembers, with her fitful tears. The wooden slabs lose name and date with years, And crumble, rotten. The Padre there, On Saint’s day, from an evening rite returning, Set for each unknown soul a candle burning, With muttered prayer. Glow-worms, they shone-- Strange, spectral-gleaming through the lonely dark. Whose nameless dust did each faint glimmer mark-- Skull, crumbling bone? Ah, the Dead knew! The grateful Dead, far-called from voids of space, Each by the tiny spark that gave him grace, Watched, the night through. ALONG THE TRACK The track has led me out beyond the town To follow day across the waning fields, The crisping weeds and wastes of tender brown.