So into every hollow cliff of life,
Into this heart’s deep cave so loud with strife,
    In tunnels I knew not,
    In lightless labyrinths of thought,

The unresting tide has run and the dark filled,
Even the vibration of old strife is stilled;
    The wave returning bears
    Muted those time-breathing airs.

—­How shall the million-footed tide still tread
These hollows and in each cold void cave spread? 
    How shall Love here keep
    Eternal motion grave and deep?

I WILL ASK

I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you
Their smell and hue,
And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare
Her flowers starry fair;
Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn
Their sweetness to keep
Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born
Between midnight and midnight deep.

And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white
In its own green light,
Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadowsweet
Lifting at your feet,
And ivy blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take
The loveliest—­
The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake
Though the winds are at rest.

“For me?” you will ask.  “Yes! surely they wave for you
Their smell and hue,
And you away all that is rare were so much less
By your missed happiness.” 
Yet I know grass and weed, ivy and apple and thorn
Their whole sweet would keep
Though in Eden no human spirit on a shining morn
Had awaked from sleep.

IN THOSE OLD DAYS

In those old days you were called beautiful,
But I have worn the beauty from your face;
The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek
With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes
Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on
Beauty and the remembrance of things gone. 
Even your voice is altered when you speak,
Or is grown mute with old anxiety
          For me.

Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns
Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight,
And then under the flame a glowing dome
Deepens slowly into blood-like light:—­
So did you flame and in flame take delight,
So are you hollow’d now with aching fire. 
But I still warm me and make there my home,
Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly
          For me.

Now my lips falling on your silver’d skull,
My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks,
Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught,
Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours: 
Now love undying feeds on love beautiful,
Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought ... 
—­And can it be in your heart’s music speaks
A deeper rhythm hearing mine:  can it be
          Indeed for me?

THE ASH