Well may the VVillow grow big in your soyle,
Inriched well with vertues Dewes, the while;
Lightly the VVillow with her leaves pale green,
Lively i'th spring rejoyceth like a Queene,
In summer prime taketh her great delight,
And it loves not, to speak of it aright,
Most noble Lord, on barren soyle to grow.

With beauty excellent i'ts palme doth show
In it, although no fruit there is of worth,
Lightly it still delighteth to bring forth.
Live then, good Lord, still by the dew of grace,
O evermore still fructify apace:

Of old the psalmist said that the morning stars sing together,
He said the rocks do sing and that the hills rejoice ...

There be ten million ears in this little city alone ...
How many have heard the rocks, the hills and the stars?
Not I, not I, as I hurried uptown and downtown!
I heard the wheels of the cars, the chatter of many mouths,
I was in the opera house when it seemed almost to burst with music,
I heard the laughter of children, and the venom of mixed malicious tongues,
But neither the stars I heard nor the muted rocks nor the hills!

My life does not belong to me:
Neither does it belong to any other person.

Otherwise this chatter and comfort would be sufficient:
This ingrowing family life would be gracious and excellent:
This ease of the rut would suit for a lifetime.

But no: Earth and the heavens are in growth: and the sap is climbing through me:
I must go the way of the skies:
I must feel the star-tendencies and give myself to them:
My life belongs to creation, as a hand belongs to a body.

If then, my day's work done,

The haunted heart beseeches me:
It cries to my soul: " Winter has come ...
With what a withering the wind blows!
And the grey twilight is bleak, though the lamplighter opens blossoms of white in the air ...

" Wanderer, return!
Go to where the hearth is warm and the faces crowd:
Hearken to the calling of the children! "

So the haunted heart beseeches me,
But from my heart I turn my face
And continue my lonely journey into the sombre dark.

Where love once was, let there be no hate:
Though they that went as one by night and day
Go now alone,
Where love once was, let there be no hate.

The seeds we planted together
Came to rich harvest,
And our hearts are as bins brimming with the golden plenty:
Into our loneliness we carry granaries of old love ...

And though the time has come when we cannot sow our acres together
And our souls need diverse fields,
And a tilling apart,
Let us go separate ways with a blessing each for each,
And gentle parting,

Once I freed myself of my duties to tasks and people and went down to the cleansing sea …
The air was like wine to my spirit,
The sky bathed my eyes with infinity,
The sun followed me, casting golden snares on the tide,
And the ocean—masses of molten surfaces, faintly grey-blue—sang to my heart …

Then I found myself, all here in body and brain, and all there on the shore:
Content to be myself: free, and strong, and enlarged:
Then I knew the depths of myself were the depths of space,
And all living beings were of those depths (my brothers and sisters)

It was as if myself sat down beside me,
And at last I could speak out to my dear friend,
And tell him, day after day, of the things that were reshaping me.

He was not afraid to hear my deepest secrets:
He was not shocked at my coarseness and trivialities:
He was prepared for my hours of weakness,—and exaltation.
Neither did he judge me by any one moment;
He knew it as a fragment of the impulse that bore me forward.

Yes, these songs were for myself.
But when they were finished, other selves desired them.

Who hath a Iewel excellent and rare,
In a triumphant maner will it weare ;
Letting all see, who view his noble dresse
Lively pourtrayd in Him is noblenesse;
In you a Iewel of high estimate,
Admired Lord, nay of excessive rate,
Making these nobles who the same possesse,

Ever resplendeth, and your happines
Vertues brave Iewel , 'tis indeed to weare ,
Rightly which to your honour doth adhere,
Ever so let that Iewel thine appeare.

PICTURE FIRST.

MIRIAM .

Fair Miriam's was an ancient manse
Upon the open plain:
It looked to ocean's dim expanse,
Saw miles of meadow pasture dance
Beside the breezy main.

A porch, with woodbines overgrown,
Faced eastward to the shore;
While Autumn's sun, through foliage brown,
'Twixt leaf and lattice flickered down
To tesselate the floor.

There walked fair Miriam; — as she stept
A rustle thrilled the air;
Rare, starry gems her tresses kept,

( THE RETURN )

I watch the track on the Red Soil plain,
To the East, when the day is late,
For one who shall surely come back again,
In summer heat or in winter rain,
Limping under his swag in pain —
For a crippled Anzac mate.