FOR BRIAN WHEN HE IS GROWN UP THIS HANDFUL OF THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE I HAVE GATHERED ON THE SECRET STREAMS.

    I thought, beloved, to have brought to you
    A gift of quietness and ease and peace,
    Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew
    Dropping from twilight trees.

    Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;
    Not mine the voice to still with peace divine: 
    From the first fount the stream of quiet flows
    Through other hearts than mine.

    Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
    And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,
    And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
    My scorn of all its pains.

THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE

    A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook
    Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. 
    The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free,
    Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.

    And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air,
    I think the sacred Hazel Tree is dropping berries there
    From starry fruitage waved aloft where Connla’s Well o’erflows;
    For sure the enchanted waters pour through every wind that blows.

    I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew
    How every high and lonely thought that thrills my being through
    Is but a ruddy berry dropped down through the purple air,
    And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.

IMMORTALITY

    We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit’s fire;
    For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
    If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
    As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.

    Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days: 
    Surely here is soul:  with it we have eternal breath: 
    In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,
    By unnumbered ways of dream to death.

THE HERMIT

    Now the quietude of earth
    Nestles deep my heart within;
    Friendships new and strange have birth
    Since I left the city’s din.

    Here the tempest stays its guile,
    Like a big kind brother plays,
    Romps and pauses here awhile
    From its immemorial ways.

    Now the silver light of dawn
    Slipping through the leaves that fleck
    My one window, hurries on,
    Throws its arms around my neck.

    Darkness to my doorway hies,
    Lays her chin upon the roof,
    And her burning seraph eyes
    Now no longer keep aloof.

    Here the ancient mystery
    Holds its hands out day by day,
    Takes a chair and croons with me
    By my cabin built of clay.