The Desire of Nations

And these, His burning words, will break the ban— Words that will grow to be,

He comes to make the long injustice right
Comes to push back the shadow of the night,
The gray Tradition full of flint and flaw
Comes to wipe out the insults to the soul,
The insults of the Few against the Whole,
The insults they make righteous with a law.

Yea, He will bear the Safety of the State,
For in his still and rhythmic steps will be
The power and music of Alcyone,

Who holds the swift heavens in their starry fate.
Yea, He will lay on souls the power of peace,
And send on kingdoms torn the sense of Home
More than the fire of Joy that burned on Greece,
More than the light of Law that rose on Rome.

The Elf Child

I am a child of the reef and the blowing spray,
And all my heart goes wildly to the sea.

I am a changeling: can you follow me Through hill and hollow on the wind's dim way? Yes, at the break of a tempestuous day

They bore me to the land through starless storm

And laid me in the pillow sweetly warm

And broken by the first one's little stay.

The elf kings found me on an ocean reef,
A lyric child of mystery and grief.

Then need I tell you why the trembling startWhy in my song the sound of ocean dwells — Why the quick gladness when the billow swells, As though remembered voices called the heart?

The Goblin Laugh

When I behold how men and women grind
And grovel for some place of pomp or power,
To shine and circle through a crumbling hour,
Forgetting the large mansions of the mind,
That are the rest and shelter of mankind;

And when I see them come with wearied brains
Pallid and powerless to enjoy their gains,
I seem to hear a goblin laugh unwind.

And then a memory sends upon its billow
Thoughts of a singer wise enough to play,
Who took life as a lightsome holiday :
Oft have I seen him make his arm a pillow,
Drink from his hand, and with a pipe of willow
Blow a wild music down a woodland way.

She comes like the hush and beauty of the night,
And sees too deep for laughter;

Her touch is a vibration and a light
From worlds before and after.

A Meeting

Softly she came one twilight from the dead,
And in the passionate silence of her look
Was more than man has writ in any book:
And now my thoughts are restless, and a dread
Calls them to the Dim Land discomforted;

For down the leafy ways her white feet took,
Lightly the newly broken roses shook
Was it the wind disturbed each rosy head?

God! was it joy or sorrow in her face

That quiet face? Had it

Had it grown old or young?

Was it sweet memory or sad that stung

Her voiceless soul to wander from its place?
What do the dead find in the Silence

grace?

Or endless grief for which there is no tongue?