With folded wings
      And white arms crost,
  ’Weep not for bygone things,
      They are not lost: 
The beauty which the summer time
O’er thine opening spirit shed,
The forest oracles sublime 60
That filled thy soul with joyous dread,
The scent of every smallest flower
That made thy heart sweet for an hour,
Yea, every holy influence,
Flowing to thee, thou knewest not whence,
In thine eyes to-day is seen,
Fresh as it hath ever been;
Promptings of Nature, beckonings sweet,
Whatever led thy childish feet,
Still will linger unawares 70
The guiders of thy silver hairs;
Every look and every word
Which thou givest forth to-day,
Tell of the singing of the bird
Whose music stilled thy boyish play.’

Thy voice is like a fountain,
Twinkling up in sharp starlight,
When the moon behind the mountain
Dims the low East with faintest white,
      Ever darkling, 80
      Ever sparkling,
    We know not if ’tis dark or bright;
But, when the great moon hath rolled round,
  And, sudden-slow, its solemn power
Grows from behind its black, clear-edged bound,
  No spot of dark the fountain keepeth,
  But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth
  Into a waving silver flower.

THE MOON

  My soul was like the sea. 
  Before the moon was made,
Moaning in vague immensity,
  Of its own strength afraid,
  Unresful and unstaid. 
Through every rift it foamed in vain,
  About its earthly prison,
Seeking some unknown thing in pain,
And sinking restless back again,
  For yet no moon had risen: 
Its only voice a vast dumb moan,
  Of utterless anguish speaking,
It lay unhopefully alone,
  And lived but in an aimless seeking.

So was my soul; but when ’twas full
  Of unrest to o’erloading,
A voice of something beautiful
  Whispered a dim foreboding,
And yet so soft, so sweet, so low,
It had not more of joy than woe;

And, as the sea doth oft lie still,
  Making its waters meet,
As if by an unconscious will,
  For the moon’s silver feet,
So lay my soul within mine eyes
When thou, its guardian moon, didst rise.

And now, howe’er its waves above
  May toss and seem uneaseful,
One strong, eternal law of Love,
  With guidance sure and peaceful,
As calm and natural as breath,
Moves its great deeps through life and death.

REMEMBERED MUSIC

A FRAGMENT

Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast
  Of bisons the far prairie shaking,
The notes crowd heavily and fast
As surfs, one plunging while the last
  Draws seaward from its foamy breaking.

Or in low murmurs they began,
  Rising and rising momently,
As o’er a harp AEolian
A fitful breeze, until they ran
  Up to a sudden ecstasy.