And have not grovelled to the Sunday priest, But found an unconfined and daily feast; Was called ungodly, and to those who blamed Laughed back defiance and was not ashamed. Some hold their duty to be mournful; why? I cannot love your weeping poets; I Am sad in winter, but in summer gay, And vary with each variable day. And though the pious cavilled at my mirth, At least I rendered thanks for God's fair earth, Grateful that I, among the murmuring rest, Was not an unappreciative guest. TO A POET WHOSE VERSES I HAD READ I WOULD not venture to dispraise or praise. Too well I know the indifference which bounds A poet in the narrow working-grounds Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways. He must work out alone his path to glory; A thousand breaths are fanning him along; A thousand tears end in one little song, A thousand conflicts in one little story; A thousand notes swell to a single chord. He cannot tell where his direction tends; He strives unguided towards indefinite ends; He is an ignorant though absolute lord. NOMADS FROM the shores of the Atlantic to the gardens of Japan, From the darkness of the Neva to the courts of Ispahan, There is nothing that can hold us, hold our wandering caravan. Leisurely is our encamping; nowhere pause in hasty flight. Long enough to learn the secret, and the value, and the might, Whether of the northern mountains or the southern lands of light. And the riches of the regions will be ours from land to land, Falling as a wiling booty under our marauding hand, Rugs from Persia, gods from China, emeralds from Samarcand! And the old forgotten empires, which have faded turn by turn, From the shades emerging slowly to their ancient sway return, And to their imperial manhood rise the ashes from the urn. We have known Bzyantium's glory when the eagled flag was flown, When the ruins were not ruins; eagled visions have I known Of a spectral Roman emperor seated on a spectral throne. We have tasted space and freedom, frontiers falling as we went, Now with narrow bonds and limits never could we be content, For we have abolished boundaries, straitened borders have we rent, And a house no more confines us than the roving nomad's tent. THE GARDEN We owned a garden on a hill, We planted rose and daffodil, Flowers that English poets sing, And hoped for glory in the Spring. We planted yellow hollyhocks, And humble sweetly-smelling stocks, And columbine for carnival, And dreamt of Summer's festival. And Autumn not to be outdone As heiress of the summer sun, Should doubly wreathe her tawny head With poppies and with creepers red.