Holy and beautiful deep,
Spread down before
The imperial coming of sleep,
Endure, endure!

And sleep, be thou the ranger
Over it wan. 
And dream, be thou no stranger
There with the dawn.

Then wings of the sun, go abroad
As a scarlet desire,
Unwearied, unwaning, unawed,
To quest and aspire,

Till the drench of the dusk you drink
In the poppy-field west;
Then veer and settle and sink
As a gull to her nest.

Wind,
Away, away! 
And hurry your phantom kind
Through the gates of day,

Or ever the king’s dark cup
With its studs and spars
Be inverted, and earth look up
To the shuddering stars.

Blaring and triumphing now,
Now quailing and lone,
Thou, thou, thou
Of the joys unknown!

Unknown and wild, wild,
Where the merrymen be,
Sink to sleep, soul of a child,
Slumber, thou sea!

All this his fiddle plays,
And many a thing
As strange, when his mood so lays
The bow to the string.

Sleepless!  He never sleeps
That I can find. 
I marvel how he keeps
A bit of his mind.

There is neither sight nor sound
In the world of sense,
But he has fathomed and found
In the silvery tense

Keen cords on the amber wood. 
As he wrings them thence,
Death smiles at his hardihood
For recompense.

Oh fair they are, so fair! 
No tongue can tell
How he sets them chiming there
Clear as a bell.

An orchard of birds in June,
The winds that stream,
The cold sea-brooks that croon,
The storms that scream,

The planets that float and swing
Like buoys on the tide,
The north-going legions in spring,
The hills that abide,

The frigate-bird clouds that range,
The vagabond moon—­
That wilful lover of change—­
And the workaday sun,

Dying summer and fall,
Seasons and men
And herds, he has them all
In his shadowy ken.

He calls and they come, leaving strife,
Leaving discord and death,
Out of oblivion to life,
Though its span be a breath.

There they are, all the beautiful things
I loved and lost sight of
Long since in the far-away springs,
Come back for a night of

New being as good as their old,
Aye, better in fact,
For somehow he gilds their fine gold,—­
Gives the one thing they lacked,

The breath, aspiration, desire,
Core, kindle, control,
Memory and rapture and fire,—­
The touch of man’s soul.

How know the true master?  I know
By my joys and my fears,
For my heart crumbles down like the snow
With spring rain into tears.

Now I am a precious one! 
With nothing to do
But idle here in the sun
And gossip with you

Of a stranger you have not seen,
As like never will. 
I would every soul had a screen,
When the wind sets ill