Chapter II

There is a pipe that plays to me
From tree to tree:
A bramble pipe an elfin holds
To golden lips in berry brakes,
And, swinging o'er the elder wolds,
A flickering music makes:
"Come over! Come over
The new-mown clover!
Come over the new-mown hay!
Where, there by the berries,
With cheeks like cherries,
And locks with which the warm wind merries,
Brown girls are hilling the hay,
All day!
Come over the fields and away!
Come over! Come over!"

SUCCESS

How some succeed who have least need, In that they make no effort for! And pluck, where others pluck a weed, The burning blossom of a star, Grown from no earthly seed.

For some shall reap that never sow; And some shall toil and not attain,-- What boots it in ourselves to know Such labor here is not in vain, When we still see it so!

SONG

Unto the portal of the House of Song, Symbols of wrong and emblems of unrest, And mottoes of despair and envious jest, And stony masks of scorn and hate belong.

Who enters here shall feel his soul denied All welcome: lo! the chiselled form of Love, That stares in marble on the shrine above The tomb of Beauty, where he dreamed and died!

Who enters here shall know no poppyflowers Of Rest, or harp-tones of serene Content; Only sad ghosts of music and of scent Shall mock the mind with their remembered powers.

Here must he wait till striving patience carves His name upon the century-storied floor; His heart's blood staining one dim pane the more In Fame's high casement while he sings and starves.

THE OLD SPRING

I.

Under rocks whereon the rose, Like a strip of morning, glows; Where the azure-throated newt Drowses on the twisted root; And the brown bees, humming homeward, Stop to suck the honey-dew; Fern and leaf-hid, gleaming gloamward, Drips the wildwood spring I knew, Drips the spring my boyhood knew.

II.

Myrrh and music everywhere Haunt its cascades;--like the hair That a naiad tosses cool, Swimming strangely beautiful, With white fragrance for her bosom, For her mouth a breath of song;-- Under leaf and branch and blossom Flows the woodland spring along, Sparkling, singing, flows along.