to the moon-eye far away
    ’Tis the fairy ring of twilight mid the spheres of night and day,
    Girdling with a rainbow cincture round the planet where we go,
    We and it together fleeting, poised upon the pearl glow;
    We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces
    In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places. 
    Half our eyes behold the glory:  half within the spirit’s glow
    Echoes of the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go. 
    By a hand of fire uplifted—­to her star-strewn palace brought,
    To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought: 
    Here of yore the ancient mother in the fire mists sank to rest,
    And she built her dreams about her, rayed from out her burning breast: 
    Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,
    Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,
    And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,
    And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,
    And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath
    As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death. 
    O’er the fields of space together following her flying traces,
    In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad races
    Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the day
    When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away
    Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold
    Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told,
    Lost within the mother’s being.  So the vision flamed and fled,
    And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead.

REST

    On me to rest, my bird, my bird: 
    The swaying branches of my heart
    Are blown by every wind toward
    The home whereto their wings depart.

    Build not your nest, my bird, on me: 
    I know no peace but ever sway: 
    O, lovely bird, be free, be free,
    On the wild music of the day.

    But sometimes when your wings would rest,
    And winds are laid on quiet eves: 
    Come, I will bear you breast to breast,
    And lap you close with loving leaves.

THE EARTH BREATH

    From the cool and dark-lipped furrow breathes a dim delight
    Through the woodland’s purple plumage to the diamond night. 
    Aureoles of joy encircle every blade of grass
    Where the dew-fed creatures silent and enraptured pass. 
    And the restless ploughman pauses, turns, and wondering,
    Deep beneath his rustic habit finds himself a king;
    For a fiery moment looking with the eyes of God
    Over fields a slave at morning bowed him to the sod. 
    Blind and dense with revelation