VI.

I found Thee in my heart, O Lord,

As in some secret shrine;

I knelt, I waited for Thy word,
I joyed to name Thee mine.

I feared to give myself away
To that or this; beside
Thy altar on my face I lay,

And in strong need I cried.

Those hours are past. Thou art not mine,
And therefore I rejoice,

I wait within no holy shrine,
I faint not for the voice.

In Thee we live; and every wind
Of heaven is Thine; blown free

To west, to east, the God unshrined,
Is still discovering me.

IN THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE.

In the Dean's porch a nest of clay

With five small tenants may be seen,

Five solemn faces, each as wise

As though its owner were a Dean ;

Five downy fledglings in a row,

Packed close, as in the antique pew

The school-girls are whose foreheads clear

At the Venite shine on you.

Day after day the swallows sit

With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound,

But dreaming and digesting much

They grow thus wise and soft and round.

They watch the Canons come to dine,

And hear the mullion-bars across,

Over the fragrant fruit and wine

Deep talk about the reredos.

Her hands with field-flowers drench'd, a child
Leaps past in wind-blown dress and hair,

The swallows turn their heads askew—
Five judges deem that she is fair.

Prelusive touches sound within,

Straightway they recognize the sign, And, blandly nodding, they approve

The minuet of Rubenstein.

They mark the cousins' schoolboy talk,

(Male birds flown wide from minster bell),

And blink at each broad term of art,

Binomial or bicycle.

Ah! downy young ones, soft and warm,
Doth such a stillness mask from sight
Such swiftness? can such peace conceal
Passion and ecstasy of flight.

Yet somewhere 'mid your Eastern suns,

Under a white Greek architrave

At morn, or when the shaft of fire

Lies large upon the Indian wave,

A sense of something dear gone-by

Will stir, strange longings thrill the heart

For a small world embowered and close,

Of which ye some time were a part.

The dew-drench'd flowers, the child's glad eyes Your joy unhuman shall control,

And in your wings a light and wind

Shall move from the Maestro's soul.

FIRST LOVE.

My long first year of perfect love,
My deep new dream of joy;

She was a little chubby girl,

I was a chubby boy.

I wore a crimson frock, white drawers,

A belt, a crown was on it;

She wore some angel's kind of dress

And such a tiny bonnet,

Old-fashioned, but the soft brown hair

Would never keep its place;

A little maid with violet eyes,
And sunshine in her face.

O my child-queen, in those lost days How sweet was daily living!