VIII

To A. J. H.

TIME and the Earth

The old Father and Mother-
Their teeming accomplished,

Their purpose fulfilled,

Close with a smile

For a moment of kindness,

Ere for the winter

They settle to sleep.

Failing yet gracious,

Slow pacing, soon homing,
A patriarch that strolls

Through the tents of his children,

The Sun, as he journeys

His round on the lower

Ascents of the blue,

Washes the roofs

And the hillsides with clarity; Charms the dark pools

Till they break into pictures;
Scatters magnificent

Alms to the beggar trees;
Touches the mist-folk,

That crowd to his escort,

Into translucencies

Radiant and ravishing:

As with the visible

Spirit of Summer
Gloriously vaporised,
Visioned in gold!

Love, though the fallen leaf
Mark, and the fleeting light
And the loud, loitering
Footfall of darkness

Sign to the heart

Of the passage of destiny,

Here is the ghost

Of a summer that lived for us,

Here is a promise

Of summers to be.

IX

'As like the Woman as you can'—
(Thus the New Adam was beguiled)—
'So shall you touch the Perfect Man'-

(God in the Garden heard and smiled). "Your father perished with his day:

'A clot of passions fierce and blind, 'He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way : 'Your muscles, Child, must be of mind.

'The Brute that lurks and irks within,

'How, till you have him gagged and bound, 'Escape the foullest form of Sin?'

(God in the Garden laughed and frowned). 'So vile, so rank, the bestial mood 'In which the race is bid to be, 'It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood:

'Live, therefore, you, for Purity!

'Take for your mate no gallant croup,

'No girl all grace and natural will : 'To work her mission were to stoop, 'Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill. 'Choose one of whom your grosser make (God in the Garden laughed outright)— 'The true refining touch may take,

'Till both attain to Life's last height.

'There, equal, purged of soul and sense. 'Beneficent, high-thinking, just, 'Beyond the appeal of Violence, 'Incapable of common Lust, 'In mental Marriage still prevail (God in the Garden hid His face)— 'Till you achieve that Female-Male 'In Which shall culminate the race.'

X

MIDSUMMER midnight skies,

Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining, sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;

And all so solemnly still I seem to hear

The breathing of Life and Death,

The secular Accomplices,

Renewing the visible miracle of the world.

The wistful stars

Shine like good memories. The young morning

wind

Blows full of unforgotten hours

As over a region of roses.

Life and Death

Sound on-sound on. . . . And the night magical,

Troubled yet comforting, thrills

As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart

Of the wood's dark wonderment

Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks With exquisite visitants :

P