Brushed:  sleep, for the violent wind is gone;
Only remains soft easeful light,
And shadow everywhere,

And few pale stars.  Hardly has eve begun
Dreaming of day renewed and bright
With beams than day’s more fair;

Scarce the full circle of the day is run,
Nor the yellow moon to her full height
Risen through the misty air.

But from the increasing shadowiness is spun
A shadowy shape growing clear to sight,
And fading.  Was it Hector there,

Great-helmed, severe?—­and as the last sun shone
Seeming in solemn splendour dight
Such as dream heroes bear;

And such his shape as heroes stare upon
In sleep’s tumultuary fight
When a cry’s heard, “Beware!” ...

—­’Twas Hector, but the moment-splendour’s gone: 
Shadow fast deepens into night,
Night spreads—­cold, wide, bare.

LISTENING

There is a place of grass
With daisies like white pools,
Or shining islands in a sea
Of brightening waves.

Swallows, darting, brush
The waves of gentle green,
As though a wide still lake it were,
Not living grass.

Evening draws over all,
Grass and flowers and sky,
And one rich bird prolongs the sweet
Of day on the edge of dark.

The grass is dim, the stars
Lean down the height of heaven;
And the trees, listening in all their leaves,
Scarce-breathing stand.

Nothing is as it was: 
The bird on the bough sings on;
The night, pure from the cloud of day,
Is listening.

STONES

Small yellow stones
That, lifted, through my idle fingers fall
Leaving a score—­
And these I toss between the parted lips
Of the lapping sea,
And the sea tosses again with millions more—­
Yellow and white stones;
Then drawing back her snaky long waves all,
Leaves the stones
Yellow and white upon the sandy shore.... 
As they were bones
Yellow and white left on the silent shore
Of an unfoaming far unvisioned Sea.

THE ENEMIES

The angry wind
That cursed at me
Was nothing but an evil sprite
Vexed with any man’s delight.

And strange it seemed
That a dark wind
Should run down from a mountain steep
And shout as though the world were asleep.

But when he ceased
And silence was—­
Who could but fear what evil sprite
Crept through the tunnels of the night?

THE SILVERY ONE

Clear from the deep sky pours the moon
Her silver on the heavy dark;
The small stars blink.

Against the moon the maple bough
Flutters distinct her leafy spears;
All sound falls weak....

Weak the train’s whistle, the dog’s bark,
Slow steps; and rustling into her nest
At last, the thrush.