By my side all day another went.
We breathed the cold spiced air of the Spring dark
Before the dawn; together at the hark
Of noon we listened; and we bent
To borrow from still grasses the warm scent
Of afternoon and dusk. We stood to mark
The deathless ark
Unveiled before the light was spent.
Prodigal of sweetness that old day
I passed, nor might
See how that one beside me stooped to lay
Something aside. Now in the night
The gleaner hunts me down
Bringing regret. I wear it for a crown.
IN J. P. P.’s METRE
I
Here a vine, there a voice,
Then a violin;
All the quiet is astir
Like a flute within.
Here a light, there a leaf,
Little boughs that lean;
And the people who move by
Wonder what they mean.
“Look,” they say, “there a star
Watching in a well;
Line and green and melody——”
Then they try to tell.
O why ask what they mean?
What is there to win?
Have we not the light, the leaf
And the violin?
II
All the air is liveried
In a kind of white;
It is not like the darkness
Or the light;
It is like the covenant
Of a clearer sight.