Oh! the river floweth fast.
Who is justified at last?
Locked her lips are. Hush! If she
Sayeth nothing, how should we?
III.
THE POET AND THE POEM.
Upon the city called the Friends'
The light of waking spring
Fell vivid as the shadow thrown
Far from the gleaming wing
Of a great golden bird, that fled
Before us loitering.
In hours before the spring, how light
The pulse of heaviest feet!
And quick the slowest hopes to stir
To measures fine and fleet.
And warm will grow the bitterest heart
To shelter fancies sweet.
Securely looks the city down
On her own fret and toil;
She hides a heart of perfect peace
Behind her veins' turmoil—
A breathing-space removed apart
From out their stir and soil.
Our reverent feet that golden day
Stood in a quiet place,
That held repressed—I know not what
Of such a poignant grace
As falls, if dumb with life untold,
Upon a human face.
To fashion silence into words
The softest, teach me how!
I know the place is Silence caught
A-dreaming, then and now.
I only know 't was blue above,
And it was green below.