None live who need fear anything From her, whose losses are their pleasure; The plover with a wounded wing Stays not the flight that others measure; So there she waits, and while she lives, And death forgets, and faith forgives, Her memories go foraging For bits of childhood song they treasure. And like a giant harp that hums On always, and is always blending The coming of what never comes With what has past and had an ending, The City trembles, throbs, and pounds Outside, and through a thousand sounds The small intolerable drums Of Time are like slow drops descending. Bereft enough to shame a sage And given little to long sighing, With no illusion to assuage The lonely changelessness of dying,-- Unsought, unthought-of, and unheard, She sings and watches like a bird, Safe in a comfortable cage From which there will be no more flying. The Burning Book Or the Contented Metaphysician To the lore of no manner of men Would his vision have yielded When he found what will never again From his vision be shielded,-- Though he paid with as much of his life As a nun could have given, And to-night would have been as a knife, Devil-drawn, devil-driven. For to-night, with his flame-weary eyes On the work he is doing, He considers the tinder that flies And the quick flame pursuing. In the leaves that are crinkled and curled Are his ashes of glory, And what once were an end of the world Is an end of a story. But he smiles, for no more shall his days Be a toil and a calling For a way to make others to gaze On God's face without falling. He has come to the end of his words, And alone he rejoices In the choiring that silence affords Of ineffable voices. To a realm that his words may not reach He may lead none to find him; An adept, and with nothing to teach, He leaves nothing behind him. For the rest, he will have his release, And his embers, attended By the large and unclamoring peace Of a dream that is ended. Fragment Faint white pillars that seem to fade As you look from here are the first one sees Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees. Now many a man, given woods like these, And a house like that, and the Briony gold, Would have said, "There are still some gods to please, And houses are built without hands, we're told."