We came to a little village and our rest at the long day’s close:
The stars shone over the street where the folk were lingering still;
The stars looked down on the stars in the dark pool under the mill;
The infinite deeps of the heaven were touched with the earth’s repose.
Bright heavenly tracts outshone; but never a way so sweet
As a homely path on the earth where the wild flowers hid in the dew,
And a girl went home through the fields, and the darkness thrilled with a clue
That linked the loneliest star with the flowers she touched with her feet.
And pleasant it was to rest awhile in that old-world nook,
And dream of the unknown way and the country over the hill,
While the stars shone down on our beds, and the village street was still,
And sleep came over the fields in the wandering song of the brook.
YOUTH AND LOVE
Over our pilgrim fellowship there came
A change, and though our road was still the same
Our dreams divided us, and visions fair
Filled us with longings that we could not share.
All that once called us to the unknown quest
Was hidden now within a maiden’s breast;
All that was far away and wild and sweet
Shone in her eyes and blossomed at her feet.
She was our wonderland, our golden shore,
The unknown world we travelled to explore,
Our goal, not one far distant and unseen,
But near, and with no barrier between
To check us or to hide it from our sight,
Save our own hesitation or her flight.
Across the beaten road she passed; she led
Through trackless regions, beckoned us or fled,
We knew not which; we knew not if her face
Appealed for help, or called us to the chase.
Strife and confusion to our lives she brought,
But life itself in lovelier hues she wrought.
She was our spirit’s guide, our passion’s lure:
She was the world’s undoing and its cure.
Of this enchantment, of the wild pursuit
That woke in us the errant knight or brute,
Of this confusion that upon us fell,
Some do not speak, and none the same thing tell;
And some were lost or made themselves a track
Through lands unknown, and some at last came back,—
One with a new light shining in his eyes,
One with the burden of his memories,
One with his blood for new pursuit on fire,
One weary seeking for his heart’s desire;
And one who brought back to the beaten road
A song of love that lightened half our load.
Comrades we met again; but though the way
Was still the same, and though the night and day,
The flowers at our feet, the stars above,
Shone as before,—the mystery of love
Filled heaven and earth with something new and sweet
And wild and sorrowful and incomplete,
And once more called us to the unknown quest
To seek the unfulfilled and unpossessed.
THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH
I
She tempted him; for such was Nature’s plan,
Who, thinking of the fruit, the flowers arrayed,
And seeking for the surest guardian
Of life to be, gave beauty to the maid.