A Boys Will | Page 9

for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from
sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,

Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the
wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the
ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I
worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,

And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as
it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not
hoped to reach.
'Men work together,' I told him from the heart,

'Whether they work together or apart.'
Spoils of the Dead
TWO fairies it was
On a still summer day
Came forth in the woods

With the flowers to play.
The flowers they plucked
They cast on
the ground
For others, and those
For still others they found.

Flower-guided it was
That they came as they ran

On something that
lay
In the shape of a man.
The snow must have made
The feathery
bed
When this one fell
On the sleep of the dead.
But the snow
was gone
A long time ago,
And the body he wore
Nigh gone with
the snow.
The fairies drew near
And keenly espied
A ring on his

hand
And a chain at his side.
They knelt in the leaves
And eerily
played
With the glittering things,
And were not afraid.
And when
they went home
To hide in their burrow,
They took them along

To play with to-morrow.
When you came on death,
Did you not
come flower-guided
Like the elves in the wood?
I remember that I
did.
But I recognised death
With sorrow and dread,
And I hated
and hate
The spoils of the dead.
Pan with Us
PAN came out of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his
eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,--
And
stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture
land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he
saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.
His heart knew
peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year

Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with
clicking pails
Who see no little they tell no tales.
He tossed his
pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For a
sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks
beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.
Times were
changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir

The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there

Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan
mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him
down on the sun-burned earth
And ravelled a flower and looked
away--
Play? Play?--What should he play?
The Demiurge's Laugh
IT was far in the sameness of the wood;
I was running with joy on the
Demon's trail,
Though I knew what I hunted was no true god.
It was
just as the light was beginning to fail
That I suddenly heard--all I

needed to hear:
It has lasted me many and many a year.
The sound
was behind me instead of before,
A sleepy sound, but mocking half,

As of one who utterly couldn't care.
The Demon arose from his
wallow to laugh,
Brushing the dirt from his eye as he went;
And
well I knew what the Demon meant.
I shall not forget how his laugh
rang out.
I felt as a fool to have been so caught,
And checked my
steps to make pretence
It was something among the leaves I sought

(Though doubtful whether he stayed to see).
Thereafter I sat me
against a tree.
Now Close the Windows
NOW close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let
them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my
loss.
It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the
earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see
all wind-stirred.
A Line-storm Song
THE line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all
day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints
vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend
their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be
my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say for themselves
In the
wood-world's torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,

Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed
like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet
woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.
There is the
gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow
waters aflutter with wind

From which to gather your gown.
What
matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?

For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea's

return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of