Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow,

And joy was never sure; To-day will die to-morrow

Time stoops to no man's lure; And love, grown faint and fretful With lips but half regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,

Nor any sound or sight:

Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,

Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal

In an eternal night.

LOVE AT SEA

WE are in love's land to-day;
Where shall we go?

Love, shall we start or stay,
Or sail or row?

There's many a wind and way,
And never a May but May;
We are in love's hand to-day;
Where shall we go?

Our landwind is the breath
Of sorrows kissed to death

And joys that were:

Our ballast is a rose;

Our way lies where God knows And love knows where.

1866.

We are in love's hand to-day

Our seamen are fledged Loves,
Our masts are bills of doves,
Our decks fine gold;

Our ropes are dead maids' hair,
Our stores are love-shafts fair
And manifold.

We are in love's land to-day

Where shall we land you, sweet?
On fields of strange men's feet,

The night shakes them round me in legions,

Dawn drives them before her like dreams;

Time sheds them like snows on strange regions,

Swept shoreward on infinite streams; Leaves pallid and sombre and ruddy,

Dead fruits of the fugitive years; Some stained as with wine and made bloody,

And some as with tears.

Some scattered in seven years' traces, As they fell from the boy that was then;

Long left among idle green places,

Or gathered but now among men ; On seas full of wonder and peril, Blown white round the capes of the north;

Or in islands where myrtles are sterile
And loves bring not forth.

O daughters of dreams and of stories
That life is not wearied of yet,
Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores,

Félise and Yolande and Juliette, Shall I find you not still, shall I miss you,

When sleep, that is true or that seems, Comes back to me hopeless to kiss you, O daughters of dreams?

They are past as a slumber that passes,
As the dew of a dawn of old time;
More frail than the shadows on glasses,
More fleet than a wave or a rhyme.
As the waves after ebb drawing sea-
ward,

When their hollows are full of the
night,

So the birds that flew singing to meward

Recede out of sight.

The songs of dead seasons, that wander
On wings of articulate words;
Lost leaves that the shore-wind may
squander,

Light flocks of untameable birds;
Some sang to me dreaming in class time
And truant in hand as in tongue;
For the youngest were born of boy's pas-
time,

The eldest are young.

Is there shelter while life in them

lingers,

Is there hearing for songs that recede,

Tunes touched from a harp with men's fingers,

Or blown with boy's mouth in a reed? Is there place in the land of your labor, Is there room in your world of delight,

Where change has not sorrow for neighbor

And day has not night?

In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers,

Will you spare not a space for them there

Made green with the running of rivers
And gracious with temperate air;
In the fields and the turreted cities
That cover from sunshine and rain
Fair passions and bountiful pities
And loves without stain?

In a land of clear colors and stories,
In a region of shadowless hours,
Where earth has a garment of glories
And a murmur of musical flowers;
In woods where the spring half un-

HERTHA

I AM that which began;
Out of me the years roll;
Out of me God and man;

I am equal and Whole;

God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.

Before ever land was,
Before ever the sea,

Or soft hair of the grass,

Or fair limbs of the tree,

Or the flesh-colored fruit of my branches,

I was, and thy soul was in me.

First life on my sources

First drifted and swam ;
Out of me are the forces

That save it or damn;

Out of me man and woman, and wildbeast and bird; before God was, I

am.

Beside or above me

Nought is there to go;

Love or unlove me,

Unknow me or know,

I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.

I the mark that is missed
And the arrows that miss,

I the mouth that is kissed

And the breath in the kiss,

The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is.

I am that thing which blesses
My spirit elate;

That which caresses

With hands uncreate

My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate.

But what thing dost thou now,
Looking Godward, to cry
"I am I, thou art thou,

I am low, thou art high?

I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thou art I.

I the grain and the furrow,
The plough-cloven clod
And the ploughshare drawn
thorough,

The germ and the sod,

The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.

Hast thou known how I fashioned

thee,

Child, underground?

Fire that impassioned thee,

Iron that bound,

Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found?

Canst thou say in thine heart
Thou has seen with thine eyes
With what cunning of art

Thou wast wrought in what
wise,

By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to the skies?

Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,

Knowledge of me?

Hath the wilderness told it thee?

Hast thou learnt of the sea? Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counsel with thee?

Have I set such a star

To show light on thy brow That thou sawest from afar What I show to thee now? Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou?

What is here, dost thou know it?
What was, hast thou known?
Prophet nor poet

Nor tripod nor throne

Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.

Mother not maker,

Born, and not made;

Though her children forsake her,
Allured or afraid,

Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for all that have prayed.

A creed is a rod,

And a crown is of night;

But this thing is God,

To be man with thy might,

To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light.

I am in thee to save thee, As my soul in thee saith, Give thou as I gave thee, Thy life-blood and breath,