When I was as mere down
  On a swift-running youthful wind uptaken
  Over tall trees, white mountains, shaken,
Into the uttermost azure lifted, lifted alone.

  From that peak can it be
  That I am fallen, fallen that was so high? 
  Or was that truly, surely I? 
Who is it crawls here now, sad, uncontentedly?

  Fallen from that high content,
  —­Fool, thou that wast content merely with bliss! 
  Happy those lovers that will not kiss;
Never to be fulfilled was the heart’s endless passion meant.

  Never on joys attainable
  To linger, never on easy near delight—­
  O bitter, unreached infinite,
Merciful defeat, availless anguish, hunger unendurable!

  O who shall be in longing wise,
  Skilled in refusal, in embracing free,
  Glad with earth’s innocent ecstasy,
Yet all the uncomprehended heaven in his eyes!

STAY

Stay, thou desired one, stay! 
Brighten the curious darkness of the world. 
Cold through the chill dark swings the sleeping world,
Sense-heavy, dreaming dully of clear day. 
No moon, no stars, no sound of wind or seas: 
Wearily sleeping in immense unease,
Dreams, dreams the world of day. 
Stay, thou adored one, stay,
Who on the dark hang’st lamps of gold delight,
Gold flames amid the purple pit of night. 
Stay, stay,
Who the cool dawn’s most lovely gray
Mak’st lovelier with rose of far away. 
Stay, thou, who buildest wonder of things mean
(More truly so they’re seen). 
Stay—­nay, fly not, nay—­stay;
Youth gone, remain thou yet and yet. 
Though the world spin in darkness and forget
The light,
Stay thou, whose coming’s joy and flight despair. 
Thou unimaginably more than fair,
Brief unsustainable strange dream, stay yet! 
Lamping the world’s close unsustainable dark
With golden unimaginable day.

SHADOWS

The shadow of the lantern on the wall,
The lantern hanging from the twisted beam,
The eye that sees the lantern, shadow and all.

The crackle of the sinking fire in the grate,
The far train, the slow echo in the coombe,
The ear that hears fire, train and echo and all.

The loveliness that is the secret shape
Of once-seen, sweet and oft-dreamed loveliness,
The brain that builds shape, memory, dream and all....

A white moon stares Time’s thinning fabric through,
And makes substantial insubstantial seem,
And shapes immortal mortal as a dream;
And eye and brain flicker as shadows do
Restlessly dancing on a cloudy wall.

WALKING AT EVE

Walking at eve I met a little child
Running beside a tragic-featured dame,
Who checked his blitheness with a quick “For shame!”
And seemed by sharp caprice froward and mild. 
Scarce heeding her the sweet one ran, beguiled
By the lit street, and his eyes too aflame;
Only, at whiles, into his eyes there came
Bewilderment and grief with terror wild.