SPRING'S IMMORTALITY

THE buds awake at touch of Spring
From Winter's joyless dream;
From many a stone the ouzels sing
By yonder mossy stream.

The cuckoo's voice, from copse and vale,
Lingers, as if to meet
The music of the nightingale
Across the rising wheat

The bird whom ancient Solitude
Hath kept forever young,
Unaltered since in studious mood
Calm Milton mused and sung.

Ah, strange it is, dear heart, to know
Spring's gladsome mystery
Was sweet to lovers long ago -

Most sweet to such as we —

That fresh new leaves and meadow flowers Bloomed when the south wind came While hands of Spring caressed the bowers, The throstle sang the same.

Unchanged, unchanged the throstle's song, Unchanged Spring's answering breath, Unchanged, though cruel Time was strong, And stilled our love in death.

AT THE GRAVE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

HERE of a truth the world's extremes are met:

Amid the gray, the moss-grown tombs of those

AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON SHAKESPEARE, thy legacy of peerless song Reveals mankind in every age and place, In every joy, in every grief and wrong: 'Tis England's legacy to all our race. Little we know of all thine inner life, Little of all thy swift, thy wondrous years Years filled with toil, rich years whose days were rife

With strains that bring us mirth, that bring us tears.

Little we know, and yet this much we know,

Sense was thy guiding star sense guided thee

To live in this thy Stratford long ago,
To live content in calm simplicity;
Greatest of those who wrought with soul
aflame

At honest daily work then found it fame.

OUR CASUARINA TREE

LIKE a huge Python, winding round and round

The rugged trunk, indented deep with

scars,

Up to its very summit near the stars, A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound

No other tree could live. But gallantly The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung

Life is the shade that clouds her thought, As Death's the eclipse of man's.

Time seems but as a bitter thing
Remembered from of yore :

Yet ah (she thinks) her song she 'll sing
When Time's long reign is o'er.

Erstwhiles she bends alow to hear
What the swift water sings,
The torrent running darkly clear
With secrets of all things.

And then she smiles a strange sad smile And lets her harp lie long ;

The death-waves oft may rise the while,
She greets them with no song.

Few ever cross that dreary moor,
Few see that flower-crowned head;
But whoso knows that wild song's lure
Knoweth that he is dead.

FROM "SOSPIRI DI ROMA"

SUSURRO

BREATH o' the grass,
Ripple of wandering wind,
Murmur of tremulous leaves:
A moonbeam moving white
Like a ghost across the plain :
A shadow on the road :
And high up, high,

From the cypress-bough,
A long sweet melancholy note.
Silence.

And the topmost spray
Of the cypress-bough is still
As a wavelet in a pool :
The road lies duskily bare :
The plain is a misty gloom:
Still are the tremulous leaves;
Scarce a last ripple of wind,
Scarce a breath i' the grass.
Hush the tired wind sleeps:
Is it the wind's breath, or

:

Breath o' the grass

?

RED POPPIES

IN THE SABINE VALLEYS NEAR ROME

THROUGH the seeding grass,
And the tall corn,

The wind goes :

With nimble feet,