Only have thou no fear
Pride, but no fear.

MUSIC COMES

Music comes
Sweetly from the trembling string
When wizard fingers sweep
Dreamily, half asleep;
When through remembering reeds
Ancient airs and murmurs creep,
Oboe oboe following,
Flute answering clear high flute,
Voices, voices—­falling mute,
And the jarring drums.

At night I heard
First a waking bird
Out of the quiet darkness sing.... 
Music comes
Strangely to the brain asleep! 
And I heard
Soft, wizard fingers sweep
Music from the trembling string,
And through remembering reeds
Ancient airs and murmurs creep;
Oboe oboe following,
Flute calling clear high flute,
Voices faint, falling mute,
And low jarring drums;
Then all those airs
Sweetly jangled—­newly strange,
Rich with change.... 
Was it the wind in the reeds? 
Did the wind range
Over the trembling string;
Into flute and oboe pouring
Solemn music; sinking, soaring
Low to high,
Up and down the sky? 
Was it the wind jarring
Drowsy far-off drums?

Strangely to the brain asleep
Music comes.

THE IDIOT

He stands on the kerb
Watching the street. 
He’s always watching there,
Listening to the beat
Of time in the street,
Listening to the thronging feet,
Laughing at the world that goes
Scowling or laughing by.

He sees Time go by,
An old lonely man,
Crooked and furtive and slow. 
He laughs as he sees
Time shambling by
While he stands at his ease,
Until Time smiles wanly back
At his laughing eye.

Greed’s great paunch,
Lean Envy’s ill looks,
Fond forgetful Love,
He reads them like books: 
Whatever their tongue
He reads them like children’s books,
Stands staring and laughing there
As all they go by.

O, he laughs as he sees
The fat and the thin,
The simple, the solemn and wise
Nod-nodding by. 
He stares in their eyes,
Till they’re angry and murmur, Poor fool!
And he hears and he laughs again
From the depth of his folly.

Even when with heavy
Plume and pall
The sleeky coaches roll by,
Coffin, flowers and all,
He laughs, for he sees
Crouched on the coffin a small
Yellowy shape go by—­
Death, uneasy and melancholy.

THE MOUSE

Standing close by you
In the cold light
Of two tall candles
That measure the dark of night,
I hear the mouse,
The only thing that’s moving
In the quiet house.

Don’t you hear it,
That furious mouse? 
How can you sleep so deep
And that noise in the house? 
Won’t you stir
At the furious scratching
In the cupboard there?