O spiritual flame,
Calm, faithful, bright! 
Time may whelm over
All but this candle’s light: 
Shadow but shadow is;
Dark though it lies
’Tis blazon’d with man’s long-dreamed dreams,
Pierced by his eyes.

OLD FIRES

The fire burns low
Where it has burned ages ago,
Sinks and sighs
As it has done to a hundred eyes
Staring, staring
At the last cold smokeless glow.

Here men sat
Lonely and watched the golden grate
Turn at length black;
Heard the cooling iron crack: 
Shadows, shadows,
Watching the shadows come and go.

And still the hiss
I hear, the soft fire’s sob and kiss,
And still it burns
And the bright gold to crimson turns,
Sinking, sinking,
And the fire shadows larger grow.

O dark-cheeked fire,
Wasting like spent heart’s desire,
You that were gold,
And now crimson will soon be cold—­
Cold, cold,
Like moon-shadows on new snow.

Shadows all,
They that watched your shadows fall. 
But now they come
Rising around me, grave and dumb.... 
Shadows, shadows,
Come as the fire-shadows go.

And stay, stay,
Though all the fire sink cold as clay,
Whispering still,
Ancestral wise Familiars—­till,
Staring, staring,
Dawn’s wild fires through the casement glow.

THE CROWNS

Cherry and pear are white,
Their snows lie sprinkled on the land like light
On darkness shed. 
Far off and near
The orchards toss their crowns of delight,
And the sun casts down
Another shining crown.

The wind tears and throws down
Petal by petal the crown
Of cherry and pear till the earth is white,
And all the brightness is shed
In the orchards far off and near,
That tossed by the road and under the green hill;
And the wind is fled.

Far, far off the wind
Has shaken down
A brightness that was as the brightness of cherry or pear
When the orchards shine in the sun. 
—­Oh there is no more fairness
Since this rareness,
The radiant blossom of English earth—­is dead!

THE BRIGHT RIDER

All the night through I drank
Sleep like water or cool cider;
Life flowed over and I sank
Down below the night of clouds.... 
  Then on a pale horse was rider
Through long brushing woods
Where the owl in silence broods,
Quavers, and is quiet again;
Where the grass dark and rank
Breathes on the still air its rain. 
Rain and dark and green and sound
Closing slowly round
Swept me as I rode,
And rode on until I came
Where a white cold river flowed
Under woods thin and bare
In the moon’s long candle flame. 
Through the woods the wind crawled
Leviathan, and here and there