( To my Collie )

Darkness hangs many veils
Between waking and sleeping,
Some most beautiful, others terrible;
One by one they unfurl,
Drifting downward
In delicate folds, at first elusively diapered,
Burning later to clearness
Of moving forms
Diverse and myriad.
None can tell what manner of veil fair or horrible
Darkness will choose as the last
To close him in from waking.

Most of all do I dread the curtain of wavy crimson
Broidered with terrible jewels,

When first I looked upon your face
It seemed to me it was not new;
It seemed from some far-distant place
I but remembered you:
For some sweet subtle feeling told
That we two once had loved of old.

The clear-cut curve of lip and chin,
The low fond voice, the gentle way;
By these I knew that we had been
Fond lovers in our day:
It seemed I heard you singing still
To me by some Thessalian rill!

Perhaps I was a shepherd lad
And you a shepherd maid;
And O! what kisses sweet we had
The while our two flocks strayed —

If I should die, and some strong Voice should say,
Unto my soul lost in the vast black deep,
" Where wouldst thou take, O Soul, thy future way,
Wouldst still live on in pain, or fall asleep? "
It seems that I would answer: Let me creep
Into the roots of some rose she loves well;
Grow upward with the sap of June and steep
The petals with this love I cannot tell;
Breathe out these dreams in perfume that could speak
My longings for her, for which words are weak!
Thus grow one swift, soft summer day, then feel

There was a Voice —
A Voice awful in the quiet!
As a deluge from the heavens it fell,
As a breath from the earth it arose —
A wild, compelling music;
Like the swift fingers of the Wind upon the harp-strings of the Rain;
Blind, groping, toiling roots, singing of predestined blossoms:
Dying flowers chanting the glory of seed;
A sad, wise rune of growing,
Mysterious as birth,
Mystic as death;
Thin treble threads spun silverly out of Immensity;
Murmurous thunders, sullen with menace!
And all about me an Influence gathered,

The shepherdess within a sunny grove,
In the black wood, a shepherd — watch'd their sheep,
" O come to me, sweet love!
Come hither! thou shalt keep
Joy in my bosom treasur'd deep. "

Sigh, stollen from her sweet brest,
What doth that marble hart,
Smartes it indeed, and feels not others smart,
Grieues it, yet thinkes that others grieued jeast?
Loue or despight, which forc't thee thence to part?
Sweet harbinger, say from what vncouth guest.
Sure thou from loue must come,
Who sigh'd to see there drest his marble tombe

Amintas, now at last
Thou art reuenged of all my rigour past;
The scorning of thee, softnesse of thy hart,
Thy longings, causefull teares,
Doe double griefe each day to mee impart.
I am not what I was,
And in my miseries I thyne doe glasse;
Ah! now in perfect yeares,
E'r reason could my comming harmes descrie,
Made loue's fond taper flie.
I burne mee thinkes in sweet and fragrant flame.
Aske mee noe more: tongue hide thy mistres' shame.

May none be so acquainted with the tyranny of fate,
Many are the griefs that I bear now in my heart.
They that formerly lay prostrate at my feet
Now on my head do they plant their footsteps.
They who had ever expectation from my kindness
Rain now upon me their bounties and obligations.
They who have recovered of the wounds of which I healed them,
Laughing are they now that I am in need of cure.
To what purport shall I ply them? Who cares for their merit?
Burn them in the fire, those black pens of mine.

Chaser of dim vast figures in the mist,
Drawn by far cries, an alien to content,
Builder of burning worlds that passed in gloom,
Vain architect of great sky-spaces, filled
With unreal suns uncurtaining the day
That fell again in dismal night — 'Twas I!

A pygmy in all else but daring dreams,
A grasper after monstrous shadow-shapes,
With stars for eyes and mass of cloud for cloak
And dreams for blood and winds of night for voice:
I sought, they fled; and wailing after — I!

And wailing after — I: for somewhere lurked

As one who wanders in a lonely land,
Through all the blackness of a stormy night,
Now stumbling here, now falling there outright,
And doubts if it be worse to stir or stand,
Not knowing what abysses yawn at hand,
What torrents roar beyond some beetling height;
Yet scales the top to find the dawn in sight,
And Earth kissed into radiance with its wand:
So, wandering hopeless in the darkness, I,
Scarce recking whither led my painful way,
Or whether I should faint or strive to prove
If 'yond the mountain-top some path might lie,