Yet what frail thin-spun flowers
  She casts into the air,
To breathe the sunshine, and
  To leave her fragrance there.

But when the sweet moon comes,
  Showering her silver down,
Half-wreathed in faint sleep,
  They droop where they have blown.

So all the grass is set,
  Beneath her trembling ray,
With buds that have been flowers,
  Brimmed with reflected day.

WINTER

Clouded with snow
  The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
  Alone sings now.

  The rayless sun,
  Day’s journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
  Unearthly white.

  Thick draws the dark,
  And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
  Floats the white moon.

THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY

There blooms no bud in May
  Can for its white compare
With snow at break of day,
  On fields forlorn and bare.

For shadow it hath rose,
  Azure, and amethyst;
And every air that blows
  Dies out in beauteous mist.

It hangs the frozen bough
  With flowers on which the night
Wheeling her darkness through
  Scatters a starry light.

Fearful of its pale glare
  In flocks the starlings rise;
Slide through the frosty air,
  And perch with plaintive cries.

Only the inky rook,
  Hunched cold in ruffled wings,
Its snowy nest forsook,
  Caws of unnumbered Springs.

NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER

    Not any flower that blows
    But shining watch doth keep;
Every swift changing chequered hour it knows
Now to break forth in beauty; now to sleep.

    This for the roving bee
    Keeps open house, and this
Stainless and clear is, that in darkness she
May lure the moth to where her nectar is.

    Lovely beyond the rest
    Are these of all delight:—­
The tiny pimpernel that noon loves best,
The primrose palely burning through the night.

    One ’neath day’s burning sky
    With ruby decks her place,
The other when Eve’s chariot glideth by
Lifts her dim torch to light that dreaming face.

ESTRANGED

No one was with me there—­
Happy I was—­alone;
Yet from the sunshine suddenly
    A joy was gone.

A bird in an empty house
Sad echoes makes to ring,
Flitting from room to room
    On restless wing: 

Till from its shades he flies,
And leaves forlorn and dim
The narrow solitudes
   So strange to him.

So, when with fickle heart
I joyed in the passing day,
A presence my mood estranged
    Went grieved away.