The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
“The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay.”
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can’t help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

When thou art gone, the little sunlit shadows
Still may dance, and the flowers nod,
And the trees whisper confidently one to the other.
When thou art gone, the day may be
No longer bright, but with slow tread pass on;
And the sun shall lag, and the moon be late in coming;
And the stars shall be lone-beamed,
And faintly gleaming, and the valleys shall draw
Their scarfs of mist about their *******.
When thou art gone, the lilac nodding yon,
Shall make a sign of understanding.
When thou art gone,
No path shall seem to call invitingly.
When thou art gone,
The songs shall lack a tenderer chord.
But I shall not unhappy be!
For I shall follow thee,
Leaving all the mourning.

There is a busy spider weaving webs,
Hanging my understanding with
Impenetrable mysteries—
Intricately woven.
Threatening all men, is
This busy weaver in its labor
Befogging man's reassuring.
There is a busy spider which threads the day,
Trailing its silver from wisdom to wisdom,
Enwrapping one with the other—
Until Wisdom is lost!
Oh, there is a busy spider—
Called Doubt!

Ah, paled and faded leaf. of spring agone,
Whither goest thou? Art speeding to
Another land upon the brooklet's breast?
Or art thou sailing to the sea, to lodge
Amid a reef, and, kissed by wind and wave,
Die of too much love?
Thou'lt find a resting place amid the moss,
And, ah, who knows! The royal gem
May be thine own love's offering.
Or wilt thou flutter as a time-yellowed page,
And mould among thy sisters,
Ere the sun may peep within the pack?
Or will the robin nest with thee
At Spring's awakening? The romping brook
Will never chide thee, but ever coax thee on.
And shouldst thou be impaled
Upon a thorny branch, what then?
Try not a flight; thy sisters call thee!
Could crocus spring from frost?
And wilt thou let the violet shrink and die?
Nay, speed not, for God hath not
A mast for thee provided.

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching ******* would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the “If” and “Why”
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

Who said that love was fire?
I know that love is ash.
It is the thing which remains
When the fire is spent,
The holy essence of experience.