Still the wet wan morns may touch Its gray rocks, perhaps; and such Slender stars as dusk may have Pierce the rose that roofs its wave; Still the thrush may call at noontide, And the whippoorwill at night; Nevermore, by sun or moontide, Shall I see it gliding white, Falling, flowing, wild and white. HILLS OF THE WEST Hills of the west, that gird Forest and farm, Home of the nestling bird, Housing from harm, When on your tops is heard Storm: Hills of the west, that bar Belts of the gloam, Under the twilight star, Where the mists roam, Take ye the wanderer Home. Hills of the west, that dream Under the moon, Making of wind and stream, Late-heard and soon, Parts of your lives that seem Tune. Hills of the west, that take Slumber to ye, Be it for sorrow's sake Or memory, Part of such slumber make Me. FLOWERS Oh, why for us the blighted bloom! The blossom that lies withering! The Master of Life's changeless loom Hath wrought for us no changeless thing. Where grows the rose of fadeless Grace? Wherethrough the Spirit manifests The fact of an immortal race, The dream on which religion rests. Where buds the lily of our Faith? That grows for us in unknown wise, Out of the barren dust of death, The pregnant bloom of Paradise. In Heaven! so near that flowers know! That flowers see how near!--and thus Reflect the knowledge here below Of love and life unknown to us. SECOND SIGHT They lean their faces to me through Green windows of the woods; Their white throats sweet with honey-dew Beneath low leafy hoods-- No dream they dream but hath been true Here in the solitudes. Star trillium, in the underbrush, In whom Spring bares her face; Sun eglantine, that breathes the blush Of Summer's quiet grace; Moon mallow, in whom lives the hush Of Autumn's tragic pace. For one hath heard the dryad's sighs Behind the covering bark; And one hath felt the satyr's eyes Gleam in the bosky dark; And one hath seen the naiad rise In waters all a-spark. I bend my soul unto them, stilled In worship man hath lost; The old-world myths that science killed Are living things almost To me through these whose forms are filled With Beauty's pagan ghost. And through new eyes I seem to see The world these live within,-- A shuttered world of mystery, Where unreal forms begin The real of ideality That has no unreal kin. DEAD SEA FRUIT All things have power to hold us back. Our very hopes build up a wall Of doubt, whose shadow stretches black O'er all. The dreams, that helped us once, become Dread disappointments, that oppose Dead eyes to ours, and lips made dumb With woes. The thoughts that opened doors before Within the mind's house, hide away; Discouragement hath locked each door For aye. Come, loss, more frequently than gain! And failure than success! until The spirit's struggle to attain Is still! THE WOOD WITCH