When the sun is high,
And the hills are happy with light,
Then virile and strong I am!
Then ruddy with life I fare,
The fighter who feels no dread,
The roamer who knows no bounds,
The hunter who makes the world his prey,
And shouting and swept with pride,
Still mounts to the lonelier height!
II
In the cool of the day,
When the huddling shadows swarm,
And the ominous eyes look out
And night slinks over the swales
And the silence is chill with death,
Then I am the croucher beside the coals,
The lurker within the shadowy cave,
Who listens and mutters a charm
And trembles and waits,
A hunted thing grown
Afraid of the hunt,
A silence enisled in silence,
A wonder enwrapped in awe!
APPLE BLOSSOMS
I saw a woman stand
Under the seas of bloom,
Under the waves of colour and light,
The showery snow and rose of the odorous trees
That made a glory of earth.
She stood where the petals fell,
And her hands were on her breast,
And her lips were touched with wonder,
And her eyes were full of pain—
For pure she was, and young,
And it was Spring!
THE HOUSE OF LIFE
Quietly I closed the door.
Then I said to my soul:
"I shall never come back,
Back to this haunted room
Where Sorrow and I have slept."
I turned from that hated door
And passed through the House of Life,
Through its ghostly rooms and glad
And its corridors dim with age.
Then lightly I crossed a threshold
Where the casements showed the sun
And I entered an unknown room,—
And my heart went cold,
For about me stood that Chamber of Pain
I had thought to see no more!