Five songs

Soft is the collied night, and cool 
The wind about the garden pool. 
Here will I dip my burning hand 
And move an inch of drowsy sand, 
And pray the dark reflected skies 
To fasten with their zeal mine eyes. 
A million million leagues away 
Among the stars the goldfish play, 
And high above the shadowed stars 
Wave and float the nenuphars.

Dance to the beat of the rain, little Fern, 
And spread out your arms again,
And say, ‘Tho’ the sun
Hath my vesture spun,
He hath labour’d, alas, in vain,
But for the shade
That the Cloud hath made,
And the gift of the Dew and the Rain.’ 
Then laugh and upturn
All your fronds, little Fern,
And rejoice in the beat of the rain!

Why does the sea moan evermore?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan,
It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.

Sheer miracles of loveliness
Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed:
Anemones, salt, passionless,
Blow flower-like; just enough alive
To blow and multiply and thrive.

Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike,
Encrusted live things argus-eyed,
All fair alike, yet all unlike,
Are born without a pang, and die
Without a pang, and so pass by. 

Hour by hour I sit, 
Watching the silent door. 
Shadows go by on the wall, 
And steps in the street. 
Expectation and doubt 
Flutter my timorous heart. 
So many hurrying home - 
And thou still away.

The fire of April leaps from forest to forest, 
Flashing up in leaves and flowers from all nooks and corners. 
The sky is thriftless with colours, 
The air delirious with songs. 
The wind-tost branches of the woodland 
Spread their unrest in our blood. 
The air is filled with bewilderment of mirth; 
And the breeze rushes from flower to flower, asking their names.