Of folded showers in streamer cloud;
Our shadows down the highway white

Or deep in woodland woven-boughed,
With yon and yon a stem alight.

I see marauder runagates
Across us shoot their dusky wink;

I hear the parliament of chats
In haws beside the river's brink;

And drops the vole off alder-banks,
To push his arrow through the stream.

These busy people had our thanks
For tickling sight and sound, but theme

They were not more than breath we drew
Delighted with our world's embrace:

The moss-root smell where beeches grew,
And watered grass in breezy space;

The silken heights, of ghostly bloom
Among their folds, by distance draped.

'Twas Youth, rapacious to consume,
That cried to have its chaos shaped:

Absorbing, little noting, still
Enriched, and thinking it bestowed;

With wistful looks on each far hill
For something hidden, something owed.

Unto his mantled sister, Day
Had given the secret things we sought

And she was grave and saintly gay;
At times she fluttered, spoke her thought;

She flew on it, then folded wings,
In meditation passing lone,

To breathe around the secret things,
Which have no word, and yet are known;

Of thirst for them are known, as air
Is health in blood: we gained enough

By this to feel it honest fare;
Impalpable, not barren, stuff.

A pride of legs in motion kept
Our spirits to their task meanwhile,

And what was deepest dreaming slept:
The posts that named the swallowed mile;

Beside the straight canal the hut
Abandoned; near the river's source

Its infant chirp; the shortest cut;
The roadway missed; were our discourse;

At times dear poets, whom some view
Transcendent or subdued evoked

To speak the memorable, the true,
The luminous as a moon uncloaked;

For proof that there, among earth's dumb,
A soul had passed and said our best.

Or it might be we chimed on some
Historic favourite's astral crest,

With part to reverence in its gleam,
And part to rivalry the shout:

So royal, unuttered, is youth's dream
Of power within to strike without.

But most the silences were sweet,
Like mothers' breasts, to bid it feel

It lived in such divine conceit
As envies aught we stamp for real.

To either then an untold tale
Was Life, and author, hero, we.

The chapters holding peaks to scale,
Or depths to fathom, made our glee;

For we were armed of inner fires,
Unbled in us the ripe desires;

And passion rolled a quiet sea,
Whereon was Love the phantom sail.

AT THE CLOSE
To Thee, dear God of Mercy, both appeal,

Who straightway sound the call to arms. Thou know'st;
And that black spot in each embattled host,

Spring of the blood-stream, later wilt reveal.
Now is it red artillery and white steel;

Till on a day will ring the victor's boast,
That 'tis Thy chosen towers uppermost,

Where Thy rejected grovels under heel.
So in all times of man's descent insane

To brute, did strength and craft combining strike,
Even as a God of Armies, his fell blow.

But at the close he entered Thy domain,
Dear God of Mercy, and if lion-like

He tore the fall'n, the Eternal was his Foe.
A GARDEN IDYL

With sagest craft Arachne worked
Her web, and at a corner lurked,

Awaiting what should plump her soon,
To case it in the death-cocoon.

Sagaciously her home she chose
For visits that would never close;

Inside my chalet-porch her feast
Plucked all the winds but chill North-east.

The finished structure, bar on bar,
Had snatched from light to form a star,

And struck on sight, when quick with dews,
Like music of the very Muse.

Great artists pass our single sense;
We hear in seeing, strung to tense;

Then haply marvel, groan mayhap,
To think such beauty means a trap.

But Nature's genius, even man's
At best, is practical in plans;

Subservient to the needy thought,
However rare the weapon wrought.

As long as Nature holds it good
To urge her creatures' quest for food

Will beauty stamp the just intent
Of weapons upon service bent.

For beauty is a flower of roots
Embedded lower than our boots;

Out of the primal strata springs,
And shows for crown of useful things

Arachne's dream of prey to size
Aspired; so she could nigh despise

The puny specks the breezes round
Supplied, and let them shake unwound;

Assured of her fat fly to come;
Perhaps a blue, the spider's plum;

Who takes the fatal odds in fight,
And gives repast an appetite,

By plunging, whizzing, till his wings
Are webbed, and in the lists he swings,

A shrouded lump, for her to see
Her banquet in her victory.

This matron of the unnumbered threads,
One day of dandelions' heads

Distributing their gray perruques
Up every gust, I watched with looks

Discreet beside the chalet-door;
And gracefully a light wind bore,

Direct upon my webster's wall,
A monster in the form of ball;

The mildest captive ever snared,
That neither struggled nor despaired,

On half the net invading hung,
And plain as in her mother tongue,

While low the weaver cursed her lures,
Remarked, "You have me; I am yours."

Thrice magnified, in phantom shape,
Her dream of size she saw, agape.

Midway the vast round-raying beard
A desiccated midge appeared;

Whose body pricked the name of meal,
Whose hair had growth in earth's unreal;

Provocative of dread and wrath,
Contempt and horror, in one froth,

Inextricable, insensible,
His poison presence there would dwell,

Declaring him her dream fulfilled,
A catch to compliment the skilled;

And she reduced to beaky skin,
Disgraceful among kith and kin

Against her corner, humped and aged,
Arachne wrinkled, past enraged,

Beyond disgust or hope in guile.
Ridiculously volatile

He seemed to her last spark of mind;
And that in pallid ash declined

Beneath the blow by knowledge dealt,
Wherein throughout her frame she felt

That he, the light wind's libertine,
Without a scoff, without a grin,

And mannered like the courtly few,
Who merely danced when light winds blew,

Impervious to beak and claws,
Tradition's ruinous Whitebeard was;

Of whom, as actors in old scenes,
Had grannam weavers warned their weans,

With word, that less than feather-weight,
He smote the web like bolt of Fate.

This muted drama, hour by hour,
I watched amid a world in flower,

Ere yet Autumnal threads had laid
Their gray-blue o'er the grass's blade,

And still along the garden-run
The blindworm stretched him, drunk of sun.

Arachne crouched unmoved; perchance
Her visitor performed a dance;

She puckered thinner; he the same
As when on that light wind he came.

Next day was told what deeds of night
Were done; the web had vanished quite;

With it the strange opposing pair;
And listless waved on vacant air,

For her adieu to heart's content,
A solitary filament.

A READING OF LIFE--THE VITAL CHOICE
I

Or shall we run with Artemis
Or yield the breast to Aphrodite?

Both are mighty;
Both give bliss;

Each can torture if divided;
Each claims worship undivided,

In her wake would have us wallow.
II

Youth must offer on bent knees
Homage unto one or other;

Earth, the mother,
This decrees;

And unto the pallid Scyther

• highway [´haiwei] n.公路，大道 (初中英语单词)
• parliament [´pɑ:ləmənt] n.议(国)会 (初中英语单词)
• breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
• hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• thirst [θə:st] n.渴，口渴；渴望 (初中英语单词)
• barren [´bærən] a.贫瘠的；不生育的 (初中英语单词)
• infant [´infənt] n.&a.婴(幼)儿 (初中英语单词)
• divine [di´vain] a.神圣的 v.预言 (初中英语单词)
• passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
• eternal [i´tə:nəl] a.永远的；永恒的 (初中英语单词)
• structure [´strʌktʃə] n.结构，构造；组织 (初中英语单词)
• marvel [´mɑ:vəl] n.令人惊异的事；奇迹 (初中英语单词)
• genius [´dʒi:niəs] n.天才(人物)；天赋 (初中英语单词)
• weapon [´wepən] n.武器；斗争手段 (初中英语单词)
• monster [´mɔnstə] n.怪物 a.大得异常的 (初中英语单词)
• captive [´kæptiv] n.俘虏；捕获物 (初中英语单词)
• horror [´hɔrə] n.恐怖；战栗 (初中英语单词)
• poison [´pɔizən] n.毒物 v.毒害 a.有毒的 (初中英语单词)
• disgust [dis´gʌst] n.厌恶 vt.令(人)作呕 (初中英语单词)
• visitor [´vizitə] n.访问者；来宾；参观者 (初中英语单词)
• vacant [´veikənt] a.空虚的，无表情的 (初中英语单词)
• reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
• torture [´tɔ:tʃə] n.&vt.折磨；痛苦；拷问 (初中英语单词)
• worship [´wə:ʃip] n.&v.崇拜；敬仰 (初中英语单词)
• woodland [´wudlənd] n.树林，林地 (高中英语单词)
• silken [´silkən] a.丝制的；柔软光滑的 (高中英语单词)
• motion [´məuʃən] n.手势 vt.打手势 (高中英语单词)
• memorable [´memərəbəl] a.难忘的；重大的 (高中英语单词)
• reverence [´revərəns] n.尊敬；敬畏；尊严 (高中英语单词)
• straightway [´streitwei] ad.立刻 (高中英语单词)
• artillery [ɑ:´tiləri] n.炮兵部队 (高中英语单词)
• descent [di´sent] n.出身，家世 (高中英语单词)
• seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
• banquet [´bæŋkwit] n.宴会，盛宴 (高中英语单词)
• compliment [´kɔmplimənt] n.敬意 vt.赞美；祝贺 (高中英语单词)
• solitary [´sɔlitəri] a.独居的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
• wistful [´wistfəl] a.渴望的；不满足的 (英语四级单词)
• meditation [,medi´teiʃən] n.熟虑；默想 (英语四级单词)
• luminous [´lu:minəs] a.发光的；明晰的 (英语四级单词)
• fathom [´fæðəm] n.英寻 vt.推测，揣摩 (英语四级单词)
• matron [´meitrən] n.主妇；护士长 (英语四级单词)
• gracefully [´greisfuli] ad.优美地，斯文地 (英语四级单词)
• weaver [´wi:və] n.纺织工；编织者 (英语四级单词)
• streamer [´stri:mə] n.飘扬的旗帜；飘带 (英语六级单词)
• ghostly [´gəustli] a.鬼的；朦胧的 (英语六级单词)
• roadway [´rəudwei] n.车行道；路面 (英语六级单词)
• rivalry [´raivəlri] n.竞争；竞赛；敌对 (英语六级单词)
• untold [,ʌn´təuld] a.没有说到的；无数的 (英语六级单词)
• holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
• phantom [´fæntəm] n.幽灵；幻影 a.幻想的 (英语六级单词)
• repast [ri´pɑ:st] n.餐 vi.就餐，设宴 (英语六级单词)
• unmoved [ʌn´mu:vd] a.无动于衷的；坚定的 (英语六级单词)