'T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle, "T was nothing that I can phrase, But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious,

And put on her looks and ways.
Were it mine I would close the shutters,
Like lids when the life is fled,
And the funeral fire should wind it,
This corpse of a home that is dead.

For it died that autumn morning
When she, its soul, was borne
To lie all dark on the hillside

That looks over woodland and corn.

A MOOD.

I Go to the ridge in the forest
I haunted in days gone by,
But thou, O Memory, pourest
No magical drop in mine eye,
Nor the gleam of the secret restorest
That hath faded from earth and sky:
A Presence autumnal and sober
Invests every rock and tree,
And the aureole of October
Lights the maples, but darkens me.

Pine in the distance,
Patient through sun or rain,
Meeting with graceful persistence,
With yielding but rooted resistance,
The northwind's wrench and strain,
No memory of past existence
Brings thee pain;

Right for the zenith heading,

And safe as stars in all men's memories.

Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue eyes

Cold as the sea, grandly compassionless; Like life, they made him eager and then mocked.

Nay, broad awake, they would not let him be;

They shaped themselves gigantic in the mist,

They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of heaven,

They whispered invitation in the winds, And breath came from them, mightier than the wind,

To strain the lagging sails of his resolve, Till that grew passion which before was wish,

And youth seemed all too costly to be staked

On the soiled cards wherewith men

played their game,

Letting Time pocket up the larger life, Lost with base gain of raiment, food, and roof.

"What helpeth lightness of the feet?" they said,

"Oblivion runs with swifter foot than they;

Or strength of sinew? New men come as strong,

And those sleep nameless; or renown in war?

Swords grave no name on the longmemoried rock

But moss shall hide it; they alone who wring

Some secret purpose from the unwilling gods

Survive in song for yet a little while

To vex, like us, the dreams of later

That chatter loudest as they mean the least;

Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means

nevermore;

Impatient is her foot, nor turns again." He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard

Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass Nor stayed her: and forthwith the frothy tide

Of interrupted wassail roared along; But Biörn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. "A ship," he muttered, "is a winged bridge

That leadeth every way to man's desire, And ocean the wide gate to manful luck";

And then with that resolve his heart was bent,

Which, like a humming shaft, through many a stripe

Of day and night, across the unpath wayed seas

Shot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sands

The first rune in the Saga of the West.

Then came green stripes of sea that promised land

But brought it not, and on the thirtieth day

Low in the West were wooded shores like cloud.

They shouted as men shout with sudden hope;

But Biörn was silent, such strange loss there is

Between the dream's fulfilment and the dream,

Such sad abatement in the goal attained. Then Gudrida, that was a prophetess, Rapt with strange influence from Atlantis, sang:

Her words: the vision was the dreaming shore's.

Looms there the New Land:
Locked in the shadow
Long the gods shut it,
Niggards of newness
They, the o'er-old.

Little it looks there, Slim as a cloud-streak; It shall fold peoples Even as a shepherd Foldeth his flock.

Silent it sleeps now; Great ships shall seek it, Swarming as salmon; Noise of its numbers Two seas shall hear.

Man from the Northland,
Man from the Southland,
Haste empty-handed;
No more than manhood
Bring they, and hands.

Dark hair and fair hair,
Red blood and blue blood,
There shall be mingled;
Force of the ferment
Makes the New Man.

Pick of all kindreds,
King's blood shall theirs be,
Shoots of the eldest
Stock upon Midgard,
Sons of the poor.

Them waits the New Land;
They shall subdue it,
Leaving their sons' sons
Space for the body,
Space for the soul."

Leaving their sons' sons
All things save song-craft,
Plant long in growing,
Thrusting its tap-root
Deep in the Gone.

Here men shall grow up
Strong from self-helping;
Eyes for the present
Bring they as eagles',
Blind to the Past.

INVITA MINERVA.

THE Bardling came where by a river grew

The pennoned reeds, that, as the westwind blew,

Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew

What music slept enchanted in each stem,

Till Pan should choose some happy one of them,

And with wise lips enlife it through and through.

The Bardling thought, "A pipe is all I need;

Once I have sought me out a clear, smooth reed,

And shaped it to my fancy, I proceed To breathe such strains as, yonder mid

303

The summer day he spent in questful

round,

And many a reed he marred, but never

found

A conjuring-spell to free the imprisoned sound;

At last his vainly wearied limbs he laid Beneath a sacred laurel's flickering shade, And sleep about his brain her cobweb wound.

Then strode the mighty Mother through his dreams,

Saying: "The reeds along a thousand

streams

Are mine, and who is he that plots and schemes

To snare the melodies wherewith my breath

Sounds through the double pipes of Life and Death,

Atoning what to men mad discord

seems?

"He seeks not me, but I seek oft in vain

For him who shall my voiceful reeds constrain,

And make them utter their melodious pain;

He flies the immortal gift, for well he knows

His life of life must with its overflows Flood the unthankful pipe, nor come

again.

"Thou fool, who dost my harmless subjects wrong,

'Tis not the singer's wish that makes the song:

The rhythmic beauty wanders dumb, how long,

Nor stoops to any daintiest instrument, Till, found its mated lips, their sweet

consent

Makes mortal breath than Time and Fate more strong."

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

I.

"T IS a woodland enchanted! By no sadder spirit

Than blackbirds and thrushes,
That whistle to cheer it
All day in the bushes,
This woodland is haunted:
And in a small clearing,
Beyond sight or hearing
Of human annoyance,
The little fount gushes,
First smoothly, then dashes
And gurgles and flashes,
To the maples and ashes
Confiding its joyance;
Unconscious confiding,
Then, silent and glossy,
Slips winding and hiding