Ever while time flows on and on and on,

That narrow noiseless river,

Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan,
Ever,-

Never despairing, often fainting, rueing,
But looking back, ah never!

Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuing
Ever.

AT LAST.

MANY have sung of love a root of bane:

While to my mind a root of balm it is,

For love at length breeds love; sufficient bliss For life and death and rising up again.

Surely when light of Heaven makes all things plain,
Love will grow plain with all its mysteries;
Nor shall we need to fetch from over seas
Wisdom or wealth or pleasure safe from pain.
Love in our borders, love within our heart,

Love all in all, we then shall bide at rest,
Ended for ever life's unending quest,

Ended for ever effort, change and fear:
Love all in all;-no more that better part

Purchased, but at the cost of all things here.

GOLDEN SILENCES.

THERE is silence that saith, “Ah me!” There is silence that nothing saith;

One the silence of life forlorn,

One the silence of death;

One is, and the other shall be.

One we know and have known for long,
One we know not, but we shall know,

All we who have ever been born;

Even so, be it so,

There is silence, despite a song.

Sowing day is a silent day,

Resting night is a silent night;

But whoso reaps the ripened corn
Shall shout in his delight,

While silences vanish away.

I

IN THE WILLOW SHADE.

SAT beneath a willow tree,

Where water falls and calls;

While fancies upon fancies solaced me,

Some true, and some were false.

Who set their heart upon a hope

That never comes to pass,

Droop in the end like fading heliotrope
The sun's wan looking-glass.

Who set their will upon a whim

Clung to through good and ill,

Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or miss their will.

All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.

A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain;

He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.

A second like a sunlit spark

Flashed singing up his track;

But never overtook that foremost lark,
And songless fluttered back.

A hovering melody of birds

Haunted the air above;

They clearly sang contentment without words,

And youth and joy and love.

O silvery weeping willow tree.

With all leaves shivering,

Have you no purpose but to shadow me

Beside this rippled spring?

On this first fleeting day of Spring,

For Winter is gone by,

And every bird on every quivering wing
Floats in a sunny sky;

On this first Summer-like soft day,
While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
And birds sing everywhere.

Have you no purpose in the world

But thus to shadow me

With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled, O weeping willow tree?

With all your tremulous leaves outspread

Betwixt me and the sun,

While here I loiter on a mossy bed
With half my work undone;

My work undone, that should be done
At once with all my might;

For after the long day and lingering sun
Comes the unworking night.

This day is lapsing on its way,

Is lapsing out of sight;

And after all the chances of the day

Comes the resourceless night.

The weeping willow shook its head

And stretched its shadow long;

The west grew crimson, the sun smouldered red, The birds forbore a song.

Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
The ripple made a moan,

The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves ;

And then I felt alone.

I rose to go, and felt the chill,

And shivered as I went;

Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,

What more that willow meant;

That silvery weeping willow tree

With all leaves shivering,

Which spent one long day overshadowing me Beside a spring in Spring.

FLUTTERED WINGS.

THE splendour of the kindling day,
The splendour of the setting sun,

These move my soul to wend its way,
And have done

With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.