The south-wind strengthens to a gale,
Across the moon the clouds fly fast,
The house is smitten as with a flail,
The chimney shudders to the blast.

On such a night, when Air has loosed
Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
Old terrors then of god or ghost
Creep from their caves to life again;

And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their squalid lease of sin
With earlier title than his own.

Unbodied presences, the packed
Pollution and remorse of Time,
Slipped from oblivion re-enact

All these maneuverings to avoid
The touching of hands,
These shifts to keep the eyes employed
On objects more or less neutral
(As honor, for time being, commands)
Will hardly prevent their downfall.

Stronger medicines are needed.
Already they find
None of their strategems have succeeded,
Nor would have, no,
Not had their eyes been stricken blind,
Hands cut off at the elbow.

I walk, I trust, with open eyes;
I've travelled half my worldly course;
And in the way behind me lies
Much vanity and some remorse;
I've lived to feel how pride may part
Spirits, tho' matched like hand and glove;
I've blushed for love's abode, the heart;
But have not disbelieved in love;
Nor unto love, sole mortal thing
Or worth immortal, done the wrong
To count it, with the rest that sing,
Unworthy of a serious song;
And love is my reward: for now,
When most of dead'ning time complain,

Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is
beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day
and night; it is not of the earth.
But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and
space, and it strives evermore to be born in the fruitful dust.
Heaven is fulfilled in your sweet body, my child, in your
palpitating heart.
The sea is beating its drums in joy, the flowers are a-tiptoe
to kiss you. For heaven is born in you, in the arms of the mother-
dust.

In the beginning of time, there rose from the churning of God's
dream two women. One is the dancer at the court of paradise, the
desired of men, she who laughs and plucks the minds of the wise
from their cold meditations and of fools from their emptiness; and
scatters them like seeds with careless hands in the extravagant
winds of March, in the flowering frenzy of May.
The other is the crowned queen of heaven, the mother, throned
on the fullness of golden autumn; she who in the harvest-time

Tired of waiting, you burst your bonds, impatient flowers, before
the winter had gone. Glimpses of the unseen comer reached your
wayside watch, and you rushed out running and panting, impulsive
jasmines, troops of riotous roses.
You were the first to march to the breach of death, your
clamour of colour and perfume troubled the air. You laughed and
pressed and pushed each other, bared your breast and dropped in
heaps.
The Summer will come in its time, sailing in the flood-tide
of the south wind. But you never counted slow moments to be sure

Love still has something of the sea,
From whence his Mother rose;
No time his slaves from doubt can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose.

They are becalm'd in clearest days,
And in rough weather tost;
They wither under cold delays,
Or are in tempests lost.

One while they seem to touch the port,
Then straight into the main
Some angry wind in cruel sport
Their vessel drives again.

At first disdain and pride they fear,
Which, if they chance to 'scape,

Once in the world’s first prime,
When nothing lived or stirred,
Nothing but new-born Time,
Nor was there even a bird –
The Silence spoke to a Star,
But do not dare repeat
What it said to its love afar:
It was too sweet, too sweet.

But there, in the fair world’s youth,
Ere sorrow had drawn breath,
When nothing was known but Truth,
Nor was there even death,
The Star to Silence wed,
And the Sun was priest that day,
And they made their bridal-bed
High in the Milky Way.

There was a time when in your face
There dwelt such power, and in your smile
I know not what of magic grace;
They held me captive for a while.

Ah, then I listened for your voice!
Like music every word did fall,
Making the hearts of men rejoice,
And mine rejoiced the most of all.

At sight of you, my soul took flame.
But now, alas! the spell is fled.
Is it that you are not the same,
Or only that my love is dead?

I know not--but last night I dreamed
That you were walking by my side,

When understand my meaning by my words,
How sense of mercy unto faith affords

Both grace to sanctify, and holy make
That soul that of forgiveness doth partake.

Thus having briefly showed you what is
The way of life, or sanctity, of bliss,

I would not in conclusion have you think,
By what I say, that Christian men should drink

In these my words with lightness, or that they
Are now exempted from what every day

Their duty is. No, God doth still expect,
Yea, doth command, that they do not neglect