THE HEDGE-ROSE OPENS

HOW passionately it opens after rain, And O, how like a prayer To those great shining skies! Do they disdain A bride so small and fair? See the imploring petals, how they part And utterly lay bare The perishing treasures of that piteous heart In wild surrender there. What? Would’st thou, too, drink up the Eternal bliss, Ecstatically dare, O, little bride of God, to invoke His kiss?— But O, how like a prayer!

THE MAY-TREE

THE May-tree on the hill Stands in the night So fragrant and so still, So dusky white. That, stealing from the wood In that sweet air, You’d think Diana stood Before you there. If it be so, her bloom Trembles with bliss. She waits across the gloom Her shepherd’s kiss. Touch her. A bird will start From those pure snows,— The dark and fluttering heart Endymion knows.

OLD LETTERS

READ them? Strangle that sick cry? Christ God, no! Shut the box. Lock the lid. You’ll be safer—so. Could you read one crookéd word Scrawled so long ago, Love would rise before your face And blind you, like a blow. Close it! Quickly! For I caught, In a childish hand, Something that she never thought I should understand. So I crouch. And shall our God Prove Him baser yet, He who filled her eyes with light Quite renounce His debt, Give her worlds to love, and then— Ere the sun be set, Strike her down and coffin all? Christ, shall He forget? Close it! Quickly! For I caught, In a childish hand, Something that she never thought I should understand.

LAMPS