Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap

Upon my spirit's stage. Then Sight and Sound,

Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound,

And all familiar Forms that firmly keep Man's reason in the road, change faces, peep

Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round. Yet thou canst more than mock: sometimes my tears

At midnight break through bounden lids a sign

Thou hast a heart; and oft thy little leaven Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years.

In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine,

I think thou 'rt Jester at the Court of Heaven!

A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE
MASTER

INTO the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.

Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.

But the olives they were not blind to
Him;

The little gray leaves were kind to Him;
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.

Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.

Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.

When Death and Shame would woo Him

last,

From under the trees they drew Him last: 'Twas on a tree they slew Him - last, When out of the woods He came.

SUNRISE

In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain

Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the

main.

The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep;

Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep,

The blackest night could bring us brighter

news.

Yet precious qualities of silence haunt
Round these vast margins, ministrant.
Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space,
With trying to breathe no bigger than thy

race

Just to be fellowed, when that thou hast found

No man with room, or grace enough of bound,

To entertain that New thou tellst, thou art,

'Tis here, 't is here, thou canst unhand thy heart

And breathe it free, and breathe it free,
By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty.

The tide 's at full; the marsh with flooded streams

Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams. Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies

A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies
Shine scant with one forked galaxy,
The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast
they lie.

Oh, what if a sound should be made!
Oh, what if a bound should be laid
To this bow-and-string tension of beauty
and silence a-spring,

To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string!

I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam

Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in a dream,

Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night,

Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light,

Over-sated with beauty and silence, will

Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled:

To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling gold

Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from

out of the sea:

Big dewdrop of all heaven: with these lit shrines

O'ersilvered to the farthest sea-confines,
The sacramental marsh one pious plain
Of worship lies. Peace to the ante-reign
Of Mary Morning, blissful mother mild,
Minded of nought but peace, and of a child,

Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure

Of motion,

not faster than dateless

Olympian leisure Might pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to pleasure,

The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling,

Forever revealing, revealing, revealing, Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise, - 't is done!

Good-morrow, Lord Sun! With several voice, with ascription one, The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul

Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll,

Cry good and past good and most heavenly morrow, Lord Sun.

In the magnet earth, yea, thou with a storm for a heart,

Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part

From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light,

Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright

Than the eye of a man may avail of:manifold One,

I must pass from the face, I must pass from the face of the Sun:

Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown;

The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town:

But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done;

I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun:

How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run,

I am lit with the Sun.