Path Flower, and Other Verses

I can listen no more; good-bye, little town, old Fairingdown. I climb the long, dark hillside, But the ache I have found here I cannot outclimb. O Heart, if we had not heard, if we did not know There is that in the village that never will sleep! THE KISS I stole into the secret room Where Love lay dying; Mystic and faint perfume Met me like sighing; As heaven had cast a still-born star He lay nor stirred; the shell-thin hand Nerveless of high command Where once the lord-veins sped their fire. And I had thought me glad To let him go. "He reaps His own," I pious said. But this, ah, this Unpleading helplessness! "Give me thy death," I cried, And took it from his lips. The windows burst them wide. The sun came in; And Love high at my side Stood sovereign. YOUTH He hears the hour's low hint and springs To the chariot-side of Truth, while fast The wild car swings Through dust and cloud; And the watchful elders, prophet-proud, Give o'er his bones To the wracking stones— But he has passed! A weft of sky, and castles stare High from a wizard shore, Sun-arrowed, tower-strong; Gold parapets in air Down-pour, down-pour Sea-falls of peri song; Then earth, the dragon's lair; Cave eyes and burning breath; And the lance the Grail lords bore This day flies swift and fair, This day of the dragon's death. Must doff the wind-wreath, find thee lone? Put on meek age's hood? Feel but the frost within the dawn? Wrap courage in a swaddling mood? His bare throat flings All-powered nay; The world, his vast, unfingered lyre, Stirs in her thousand strings; Lit with redemptive flame Burns miracle desire, And dedicated day Is long as freedom's dream. Youth of the lance, youth of the lyre, How far, how far shalt go? Where will the halting be? Sun-courier, whose roads of fire Bridge God's delay, The hearts that know thee, ah, they know, Ageless in clay, Sole immortality! TO MIRIMOND (HER BIRTHDAY, IN DECEMBER) Dost think that Time, to whom stars vainly sue, Will for thy beauty keep one fixèd place? Or that he may, o'er-weighed with seasons due, Forget one Spring where veinlet tendrils lace Rose over rose to make this flower, thy face? Look round thee now, dear dupe of sweet hey-day! Of what once blooming joy canst thou find…