To-night my soul desires no fellowship,
Or fellow-being; crave I but to slip
Thro’ space on space, till flesh no more can bind,
And I may quit for aye my fellow kind.

Let me but feel athwart my cheek the lash
Of whipping wind, but hear the torrent dash
Adown the mountain steep, ’twere more my choice
Than touch of human hand, than human voice.

Let me but wander on the shore night-stilled,
Drinking its darkness till my soul is filled;
The breathing of the salt sea on my hair,
My outstretched hands but grasping empty air.

Let me but feel the pulse of Nature’s soul
Athrob on mine, let seas and thunders roll
O’er night and me; sands whirl; winds, waters beat;
For God’s grey earth has no cheap counterfeit.

RE-VOYAGE

What of the days when we two dreamed together? 
  Days marvellously fair,
As lightsome as a skyward floating feather
  Sailing on summer air—­
Summer, summer, that came drifting through
Fate’s hand to me, to you.

What of the days, my dear?  I sometimes wonder
  If you too wish this sky
Could be the blue we sailed so softly under,
  In that sun-kissed July;
Sailed in the warm and yellow afternoon,
With hearts in touch and tune.

Have you no longing to re-live the dreaming,
  Adrift in my canoe? 
To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming
  Cleaving the waters through? 
To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until
Your restless pulse grows still?

Do you not long to listen to the purling
  Of foam athwart the keel? 
To hear the nearing rapids softly swirling
  Among their stones, to feel
The boat’s unsteady tremor as it braves
The wild and snarling waves?

What need of question, what of your replying? 
  Oh! well I know that you
Would toss the world away to be but lying
  Again in my canoe,
In listless indolence entranced and lost,
Wave-rocked, and passion tossed.

Ah me! my paddle failed me in the steering
  Across love’s shoreless seas;
All reckless, I had ne’er a thought of fearing
  Such dreary days as these,
When through the self-same rapids we dash by,
My lone canoe and I.

BRIER

GOOD FRIDAY

Because, dear Christ, your tender, wounded arm
  Bends back the brier that edges life’s long way,
That no hurt comes to heart, to soul no harm,
  I do not feel the thorns so much to-day.

Because I never knew your care to tire,
  Your hand to weary guiding me aright,
Because you walk before and crush the brier,
  It does not pierce my feet so much to-night.

Because so often you have hearkened to
  My selfish prayers, I ask but one thing now,
That these harsh hands of mine add not unto
  The crown of thorns upon your bleeding brow.