I ride on the mountain tops, I ride; I have found my life and am satisfied. Onward I ride in the blowing oats, Checking the field-lark’s rippling notes-- Lightly I sweep From steep to steep: Over my head through the branches high Come glimpses of a rushing sky; The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks; Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks; A bee booms out of the scented grass; A jay laughs with me as I pass. I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget Life’s hoard of regret-- All the terror and pain Of the chafing chain. Grind on, O cities, grind: I leave you a blur behind. I am lifted elate--the skies expand: Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand. Let them weary and work in their narrow walls: I ride with the voices of waterfalls! I swing on as one in a dream--I swing Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing! The world is gone like an empty word: My body’s a bough in the wind, my heart a bird! The Invisible Bride The low-voiced girls that go In gardens of the Lord, Like flowers of the field they grow In sisterly accord. Their whispering feet are white Along the leafy ways; They go in whirls of light Too beautiful for praise. And in their band forsooth Is one to set me free-- The one that touched my youth-- The one God gave to me. She kindles the desire Whereby the gods survive-- The white ideal fire That keeps my soul alive. Now at the wondrous hour, She leaves her star supreme, And comes in the night’s still power, To touch me with a dream. Sibyl of mystery On roads beyond our ken, Softly she comes to me, And goes to God again. The Valley I know a valley in the summer hills, Haunted by little winds and daffodils; Faint footfalls and soft shadows pass at noon; Noiseless, at night, the clouds assemble there; And ghostly summits hang below the moon-- Dim visions lightly swung in silent air. The Climb of Life There’s a feel of all things flowing, And no power of Earth can bind them; There’s a sense of all things growing, And through all their forms a-glowing Of the shaping souls behind them. And the break of beauty heightens With the swiftening of the motion, And the soul behind it lightens, As a gleam of splendor whitens From a running wave of ocean. See the still hand of the Shaper, Moving in the dusk of being: Burns at first a misty taper, Like the moon in veil of vapor, When the rack of night is fleeing. In the stone a dream is sleeping, Just a tinge of life, a tremor; In the tree a soul is creeping-- Last, a rush of angels sweeping With the skies beyond the dreamer.