Who knocks?—the door is open!—And I see
The Darkness threatening, with distorted fists
Of cloudy terror, Courage on her knee:
Shine far, O candle! for it so may be
Love is bewildered in the night and mists.—
No wandering wisp art thou, that haunts the rain
With pallid flicker, fading as it flies!—
The door is open!—Will he knock again?—
The door is open!—Shall it be in vain?—
Come in! delay not! thou, whose ways are wise!
Who knocked has entered: let the darkness pass,
The door be closed!—Now morning lights shall thrust
It open; and the sunlight shine and mass
Its splendor here where once but darkness was,
And in its rays—motes and a little dust.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
XXIII
And I had read, read to the bitter end;
Half hearing lone surmises of the rain
And trouble of the wind. At last I rose
And went to Gwendolyn. She did not know
The kiss I gave her had a shudder in it;
Nor how the form of Julien rose between
Me and her lips, a blood-stain o’er his heart.
THE IDYLL OF THE STANDING-STONE
I
She knows its windings and its crooks;
The wildflowers of its lovely woods;
The crowfoot’s golden sisterhoods,
That crowd its sunny nooks:
The iris, whose blue blossoms seem
Mab’s bonnets; and, each leaf a-gleam,
The trillium’s fairy-books.