But one I seek in foreign places,

One face explore in foreign faces.

At home a deeper thought may light

The inward sky with chrysolite,

And I greet from far the ray,

Aurora of a dearer day.

But if upon the seas I sail,

Or trundle on the glowing rail,

I am but a thought of hers,

Loveliest of travellers.

So the gentle poet’s name

To foreign parts is blown by fame;

Seek him in his native town,

He is hidden and unknown.

LETTERS

Every day brings a ship,

Every ship brings a word;

Well for those who have no fear,

Looking seaward well assured

That the word the vessel brings

Is the word they wish to hear.

RUBIES

They brought me rubies from the mine,

And held them to the sun;

I said, they are drops of frozen wine

From Eden’s vats that run.

I looked again, – I thought them hearts

Of friends to friends unknown;

Tides that should warm each neighboring life

Are locked in sparkling stone.

But fire to thaw that ruddy snow,

To break enchanted ice,

And give love’s scarlet tides to flow, –

When shall that sun arise?

MERLIN’S SONG

Of Merlin wise I learned a song, –

Sing it low, or sing it loud,

It is mightier than the strong,

And punishes the proud.

I sing it to the surging crowd, –

Good men it will calm and cheer,

Bad men it will chain and cage.

In the heart of the music peals a strain

Which only angels hear;

Whether it waken joy or rage,

Hushed myriads hark in vain,

Yet they who hear it shed their age,

And take their youth again.

THE TEST
(Musa loquitur)

I hung my verses in the wind,

Time and tide their faults may find.

All were winnowed through and through,

Five lines lasted sound and true;

Five were smelted in a pot

Than the South more fierce and hot;

These the siroc could not melt,

Fire their fiercer flaming felt,

And the meaning was more white

Than July’s meridian light.

Sunshine cannot bleach the snow,

Nor time unmake what poets know.

Have you eyes to find the five

Which five hundred did survive?

NATURE

I

Winters know

Easily to shed the snow,

And the untaught Spring is wise

In cowslips and anemonies.

Nature, hating art and pains,

Baulks and baffles plotting brains;

Casualty and Surprise

Are the apples of her eyes;

But she dearly loves the poor,

And, by marvel of her own,

Strikes the loud pretender down.

For Nature listens in the rose,

And hearkens in the berry’s bell,

To help her friends, to plague her foes,

And like wise God she judges well.

Yet doth much her love excel

To the souls that never fell,

To swains that live in happiness,

And do well because they please,

Who walk in ways that are unfamed,

And feats achieve before they’re named.

NATURE

II

She is gamesome and good,

But of mutable mood, –

No dreary repeater now and again,