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To stars and flowers we are; how many means
Of grace there are for those that never lose
Their sense of membership in this divine
Body of God; for those that all their days
Have walked in sweet communion with the life
That keeps the common secret of the sun,
The wind, the silence and the heart of man.
There is one God, one Life, one everlasting
Passion behind the many-coloured veil

Of music, moonlight, flowers and human speech.
We have obscured God's face with partial truths:
This is the cause of all our sorrow: sin
Itself proceeds from this, and all our wars
Of force and intellect proceed from this.
Yet, by the battle of our partial truths,
The past against the present and the swift
Moment of present joy against the dark
Years of eternity, the weaker truth

Is worsted by the stronger, till we near

The indifferent splendour of the whole. Our God
Has been too long a partial God; but then
We shall not find Him more in this than that,
In virtue than in vice, in life than death.
For all of us-not one alone-nor men
Alone, are sons of God. We are all made
After His image, men and birds and beasts,
Mountains and winds and cataracts and suns,
Yea, all that is above our little world,
Existences that live and move in realms
As far beyond our thought as Europe lies
With all its little arts and sciences
Beyond the comprehension of the worm.

We are all partial images; we need
What lies beyond us to complete our souls;
Therefore our souls are filled with a desire
And love which leads us towards infinity.
These things I know: for I have seen the face
Of one who talked with God before he died.

Peacefully through the dreaming lanes I went,
The sun sank, and the birds were hushed. The stars
Trembled like blossoms in the purple trees.
But, as I paused upon the whispering hill
The mellow light still lingered in the West,
And dark and soft against that rosy depth
A boy and girl stood knee-deep in the ferns.
Dreams of the dead man's youth were in my heart,
Yet I was very glad; and as the moon

Brightened, I saw them kiss like swaying roses
Where some white Psyche nestles in their leaves
And sets a-sway their chaliced hearts of gold.

Under an arch of leaves, into the gloom
I went along the little woodland road,

And through the breathless hedge of blossom heard,
Out of the deepening night, the long low sigh

Of supreme peace that whispers to the hills
The sacrament and sabbath of the sea.

The Sheep.

SLOWLY they pass

In the grey of the evening

Over the wet road,

A flock of sheep.
Slowly they wend

In the grey of the gloaming

Over the wet road

That winds through the town.

Slowly they pass,

And gleaming whitely

Vanish away

In the grey of the evening.

Ah, what memories

Loom for a moment,

Gleam for a moment,
And vanish away,
Of the white days
When we two together

Went in the evening,

Where the sheep lay,
We two together,
Went with slow feet

In the grey of the evening
Where the sheep lay.

Whitely they gleam

For a moment and vanish

Away in the dimness
Of sorrowful years,
Gleam for a moment,
All white, and go fading
Away in the greyness
Of sundering years.

Out of the Strong, Sweetness.

HALF-LIGHT of the dawn of the world,

Tremulous watery plains,

And chaos half dispelled

From the nebulous sea and land,

And through the gloom

The eyes of the gods.

Eyes of the gods, and silence,

And sense of the laughter of gods;
And there, alone in the grey,

Slender and gentle and shy,

Large-eyed with wonder, and trembling,
A herd of deer.

And whisper less loud than a thought,

Little ones gentle and shy,

Deep in the heart of the wood

The silence awaits you, your home.
Hide from the gods and their laughter
In leafy ways.

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