Each pale Christ stirring underground
Splits the brown casket of its root,
Wherefrom the rousing soil upthrusts
A narrow, pointed shoot,

And bones long quiet under frost
Rejoice as bells precipitate
The loud, ecstatic sundering,
The hour inviolate.

This Man of April walks again—
Such marvel does the time allow—
With laughter in His blesséd bones,
And lilies on His brow.

Each of us is like Balboa: once in all our lives do we,
Gazing from some tropic summit, look upon an unknown sea;

But upon the dreary morrow, every way our footsteps seek,
Rank and tangled vine and jungle block our pathway to the peak.

Say ye I wept? I do not know: —
There came a sound across my brain,
Which was familiar long ago;
And through the hot and crimson stain
That floods the earth and chokes the air,
I saw the waving of white hair —
The palsy of an aged brow;
I should have known it once, but now
One desperate hour hath dashed away
The memory of my kingly day.
Mute, weak, unable to deliver
That bowed distress of passion pale,
I saw that forehead's tortured quiver,
And watched the weary footstep fail,
With just as much of sickening thrill

Each hour has some glory all its own,
Some silver lull of streams unheard before,
Some glimpses rare of Nature's loveliness,
Some song with sweetness newer than of yore.

Each hour waiting spirits, Peace and Hope,
Stand near us if we wave them not away;
Each hour questions haunt us, bearing balm
Imprisoned in the potent yea or nay .

Each hour is a Sibyl, weird and strange,
Of eye prophetic and of backward glance;
Each is a restless bird checked in its flight,
A whisper that will nevermore entrance.

Each hath his drug for sorrow
—(Or else the pain would slay!)
For one, it is “To-morrow”;
—For one, 'tis “Yesterday.”

“And hast thou lost, my Brother?”
—“Yea, but in dreams I find.”
“And I” (so saith another)
—“Leave buried dead behind!”

For each, when gyves are fretting,
—A different balm must be.
Some find it in forgetting,
—And some in memory.

Simon Danz has come home again,
From cruising about with his buccaneers;
He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
And carried away the Dean of Jaen,
And sold him in Algiers.

In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles,
And weathercocks flying aloft in air,
There are silver tankards in antique styles,
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles
Of carpets rich and rare.

In his tulip-garden there by the town,
Overlooking the sluggish stream,
With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown,
The old sea-captain, hale and brown,

Dusk Above the
water hang the loud flies Here O so gray then What A pale signal will appear When Soon before its shadow fadesWhere Here in this pool of opened eyeIn us No Upon us As at the very edges of where we take shape in the dark air this object bares its image awakening ripples of recognition that will brush darkness up into light

I

Dunna thee tell me it's his'n, mother,
Dunna thee, dunna thee!
— Oh ay, he'll come an' tell thee his-sen,
Wench, wunna he?

Tha doesna mean ter say ter me, mother,
He's gone wi' that —
— My gel, owt'll do for a man i' th' dark;
Tha's got it flat!

But 'er's old, mother, 'er's twenty year
Older nor him —
— Ay, an' yaller as a crowflower; an' yet i' th' dark

There was a Young Lady of Firle,
Whose hair was addicted to curl;
It curled up a tree, and all over the sea,
That expansive Young Lady of Firle.

Dull as I was, to think that a Court Fly,
Presum'd so neer her Eye;
When 'twas th'industrious Bee
Mistook her glorious Face for Paradise,
To summe up all his Chymistry of Spice;
With a brave pride and honour led,
Neer both her Suns he makes his bed;
And though a Spark struggles to rise as red:
Then AEmulates the gay
Daughter of Day,
Acts the Romantick Phoenix fate:
When now with all his Sweeets lay'd out in state,
Lucasta scatters but one Heat,
And all the Aromatick pills do sweat,
And Gums calcin'd, themselves to powder beat;