So doth each age walk in the light beheld, Nor think on light, if it be light or no; Then comes the night to it, and in the night Eve. The God-given, the most beautiful Eve. And she is not seen for darkness' sake; Yet, when she makes her gracious presence felt, The age perceives how dark it is, and fain, Fain would have daylight, fain would see her well, A beauty half revealed, a helpmeet sent To draw the soul away from valley clods; Made from itself, yet now a better self-- Soul in the soulless, arrow tipped with fire Let down into a careless breast; a pang Sweeter than healing that cries out with it For light all light, and is beheld at length-- The morning dawns. Were not we born to light? Ay, and we saw the men and women as saints Walk in a garden. All our thoughts were fair; Our simple hearts, as dovecotes full of doves, Made home and nest for them. They fluttered forth. And flocks of them flew white about the world. And dreams were like to ships that floated us Far out on silent floods, apart from earth, From life--so far that we could see their lights In heaven--and hear the everlasting tide, All dappled with that fair reflected gold, Wash up against the city wall, and sob At the dark bows of vessels that drew on Heavily freighted with departed souls To whom did spirits sing; but on that song Might none, albeit the meaning was right plain, Impose the harsh captivity of words. Afterward waking, sweet was early air, Full excellent was morning: whether deep The snow lay keenly white, and shrouds of hail Blurred the grey breaker on a long foreshore, And swarming plover ran, and wild white mews And sea-pies printed with a thousand feet The fallen whiteness, making shrill the storm; Or whether, soothed of sunshine, throbbed and hummed The mill atween its bowering maple trees, And churned the leaping beck that reared, and urged A diamond-dripping wheel.