- THE WILLOW-SEEDS
LOOK! The seeds of a willow-tree,
Falling on grass that must have grown,
In this one spot for a thousand years!
The tossing wind like a gusty sea
Over the elder-bushes blown,
Over the hollow-foliaged elms,
With their orbed shadows in hemispheres,
What wild, strange thoughts it brings to me
From what deep reluctant realms!
Can Fate itself remember the day
When I wandered here from some sea-shore?
I saw these elder-bushes, I saw
This lonely place — that tree-trunk grey;
I saw the willow-seeds cover the grass —
The grass that has grown for a thousand years!
I saw the hollow-foliaged elms,
And then, as now, from reluctant realms.
Came thoughts that would not pass.
What lives we lead — dear God, what lives!
What a palimpsest of double days,
The Master of our journey gives!
Forever round our casual ways
Strange omens peer, strange portents wink;
And we stand darkly on the brink
Of more than mortal mysteries.
