Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly. 
No:  I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King’s jest,
  It was hid so carefully.

A CHORD OF COLOUR

My Lady clad herself in grey,
  That caught and clung about her throat;
Then all the long grey winter day
  On me a living splendour smote;
And why grey palmers holy are,
  And why grey minsters great in story,
And grey skies ring the morning star,
  And grey hairs are a crown of glory.

My Lady clad herself in green,
  Like meadows where the wind-waves pass;
Then round my spirit spread, I ween,
  A splendour of forgotten grass. 
Then all that dropped of stem or sod,
  Hoarded as emeralds might be,
I bowed to every bush, and trod
  Amid the live grass fearfully.

My Lady clad herself in blue,
  Then on me, like the seer long gone,
The likeness of a sapphire grew,
  The throne of him that sat thereon. 
Then knew I why the Fashioner
  Splashed reckless blue on sky and sea;
And ere ’twas good enough for her,
  He tried it on Eternity.

Beneath the gnarled old Knowledge-tree
  Sat, like an owl, the evil sage: 
‘The World’s a bubble,’ solemnly
  He read, and turned a second page. 
‘A bubble, then, old crow,’ I cried,
  ’God keep you in your weary wit! 
’A bubble—­have you ever spied
  ‘The colours I have seen on it?’

THE HAPPY MAN

To teach the grey earth like a child,
  To bid the heavens repent,
I only ask from Fate the gift
  Of one man well content.

Him will I find:  though when in vain
  I search the feast and mart,
The fading flowers of liberty,
  The painted masks of art.

I only find him at the last,
  On one old hill where nod
Golgotha’s ghastly trinity—­
  Three persons and one god.

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN

I do not cry, beloved, neither curse. 
  Silence and strength, these two at least are good. 
  He gave me sun and stars and ought He could,
But not a woman’s love; for that is hers.

He sealed her heart from sage and questioner—­
  Yea, with seven seals, as he has sealed the grave. 
  And if she give it to a drunken slave,
The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her.

Only this much:  if one, deserving well,
  Touching your thin young hands and making suit,
  Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute,
Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell;

Prophet and poet be he over sod,
  Prince among angels in the highest place,
  God help me, I will smite him on the face,
Before the glory of the face of God.