“Like a storm of sand I run Breaking the desert’s boundaries, I go in hiding from the sun In thick shade of trees. Straight was the track I took Across the plains, but here with briar And mire the tangled alleys crook, Baulking desire. And there, what glinted white? (A bough still shakes.) What was it darted from my sight Through the forest brakes? Where are you fled from me? I pursue, you fade; I run, you hide from me In the dark glade. Towering straight the trees grow, The grass grows thick. Where you are I do not know, You fly so quick.” “Seek me not here Lodged among mortal deer,” Says the White Doe; “Keeping one place Held by the ties of Space,” Says the White Doe. “I Equally In air Above your bare Hill crest, your basalt lair, Mirage-reflected drink At the clear pool’s brink; With tigers at play In the glare of day Blithely I stray; Under shadow of myrtle With Phœnix and his Turtle For all time true; With Gryphons at grass Under the Upas, Sipping warm dew That falls hourly new; I, unattainable Complete, incomprehensible, No mate for you. In sun’s beam Or star-gleam, No mate for you, No mate for you,” Says the White Doe. SULLEN MOODS Love, do not count your labour lost Though I turn sullen, grim, retired Even at your side; my thought is crossed With fancies by old longings fired. And when I answer you, some days Vaguely and wildly, do not fear That my love walks forbidden ways, Breaking the ties that hold it here. If I speak gruffly, this mood is Mere indignation at my own Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties; I forget the gentler tone. You, now that you have come to be My one beginning, prime and end, I count at last as wholly me, Lover no longer nor yet friend. Friendship is flattery, though close hid; Must I then flatter my own mind? And must (which laws of shame forbid) Blind love of you make self-love blind? Do not repay me my own coin, The sharp rebuke, the frown, the groan; Remind me, rather, to disjoin Your emanation from my own. Help me to see you as before When overwhelmed and dead, almost, I stumbled on that secret door Which saves the live man from the ghost. Be once again the distant light, Promise of glory, not yet known In full perfection--wasted quite When on my imperfection thrown. A FALSE REPORT Are they blind, the lords of Gaza, That each his fellow urges “Samson the proud is pillow-smothered,” They raise mock dirges? Philistines and dullards, Turn, look with amaze At my foxes running in your cornfields With their tails ablaze,