Fays One secret night, I stood where ocean pours Eternal waters on the yellow shores, And saw the drift of fays that Prosper saw : (Their feet had no more sound than blowing straw.) And little hands held light in little hands They chased a fleeing billow down the sands, But turned in the nick o' time, and mad with glee Raced back again before the swelling sea. In Death Valley There came gray stretches of volcanic plains, Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill, Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw. Around were heaps of ruins piled between The Burn o' Sorrow and the Water o' Care; And from the stillness of the down-crushed walls One pillar rose up dark against the moon. There was a nameless Presence everywhere; In the gray soil there was a purple stain, And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood Blood of a vast unknown Calamity. It was the mark of some ancestral griefGrief that began before the ancient Flood. At Dawn Just then the branches lightly stirred. . . . "Follow Me " O friend, we never choose the better part, Till I am nailed upon it wild and high, And sleep in the tomb for a full three days dead, With angels at the feet and at the head. But then in a great brightness I shall rise To walk with stiller feet below the skies. |