THE SUPPLICANT

LO, it is he! his eyes like stars agleam,

His parted lips that droop with memories mute,

His yearning hands that clasp the sacred lute.
From out the clamorous dark, with steps that seem
To follow, ever hope-impaled, a beam
Pursuant, on he presses, snared in gloom.
Upon his brow the laurel's verdant doom
Rests like the fadeless pinions of a dream.
With haunting litanies the air awakes,
Vibrant with tones whose rapture is a pain,
The paling branches part, where hesitates
A shadow, backward gazing once again:
Still backward gazing, Orpheus heart, to meet
Eternity within a moment fleet.

POSSESSION

H art thou he, whose voice is melody,

OH

Whose soul is as a harp the eve-winds stir,
Until its song shall reach the soul of Her?
Oh art thou he, whose whole desire must be
For ever sealed within an alien sea,

That leafy sea, where thou hast all forgot,
Save that thou lingerest yet where She is not?
Oh, Orpheus, calling still Eurydice!
There art thou prisoned 'mid the tossing waves
Of spindrift green, engulfing thee apart,
There must thou bide; no Lesbos lulls thy staves,
Or quenches night's wild longing in thy heart;
Thou whose wide gaze did pierce the Stygian mist,
Supreme possessor, who in loss..
yet kissed!

I

RECOGNITION

LEFT the toilsome streets and fared

Unto the world of trees,

The faces of men's windows glared
With sunset's smouldering ease.

Beyond the elbowed throngs I came
Unto a world of sky,

I found no voice there raised to blame,
Or my bound day decry.

Beneath the gloaming of a pine
I rested, knowing then

What greater loneliness was mine
Within that world of men.

WITHIN the forest's close embrace,

WITHIN

My soul its kinsfolk met,

Tall pines, with strings that interlace,
The winds might tune and fret.

The larches turned their breasts to me,
Each homeward beckoning,
Their midmost, primal mystery
Beyond my reckoning.

Then to that parent-house I crept,
While Silence counselled near,
And in the cup my heart had kept,
For welcome dropped a tear.

I

FOREST SOUND

HEARD the twilight sounds that slip

Within the awe-hushed wood,

The sudden call of bird, the trip

Of insect hardihood.

I saw the poplar trees that glowed
Within their tawny barks,
Each tinkling leaf, a bell that showed
A tongue of silver sparks.

I felt upon my cheek the whir

Of free, mysterious life,

The half-hid wings of things that stir
An unguessed soul to strife.

The breath of waters followed me,
Like quickened sighs at night,
Where little winds made minstrelsy
'Gainst boughs of frail delight.

About me pressed, how unaware,
The woodland's spirit-cry,

Till driven from that Eden there

A forest-voice roam I!