How small the thread that holds up happiness; But one frail life between the dark and me, Your life, dear love—and here I seem to see You whimsically smile, that I confess The whole round world, with its vast energy, Its summers, and its sunshine, and its aims, Its splendid hopes, the faith that unquenched, flames —All sunk into the compass of you and me. Yes, you are right, the single leaves that fall Mar not the summer; do I think one leaf Denudes a forest?—We are nought at all. Yet the bereaved small bird within the tree May break its heart above its nest for grief —And perhaps this must happen, love, to me. 

 

 

 "IN ALL THINGS GRACIOUS THERE IS A THOUGHT OF YOU" 

 In all things gracious there is a thought of you: In the soft fall of April rain, the blue Of April skies in the morning, the full moon Of windless August nights, perfect and still, When the white moonlight lies across the hill Of new-cut stubble, where a little mist, Flickering, rises. In the song of birds My heart turns to you, emptied all of words By loveliness, and in the poise and swing Of flowering grasses, and in the lingering Grave, spacious fall of evening on the earth, When the wide, liquid spaces of the sky, Above the dewy fields and darkening lanes, And windless water lying quietly, Yield up the daylight, until none remains. 

 I could endure—or so it seems to me— Without your presence, a life of winter days, Stark, grey Novembers stretching endlessly, Where I, forgetting laughter and bright things, Might set my face to duty; but the stir, The loveliness, the poignancy of springs, The growth, the rise, the universal press Up to sensation—ah, I could not bear To live an April through, but must take wings Out of a world too fair for loneliness. 

 

 

   "THERE'S DUTY, FRIEND, TO JOG WITH ARM IN ARM" 

 There's duty, friend, to jog with arm in arm Through these dark streets; there's kindliness indeed, And there's the hope a little more to weed Our own small patch of life which the tares harm; There's patience for the folly of the earth; There's pity for the poor who suffer wrong; There's honour for the striving and the strong —But ah, dear friend of mine, where is the mirth? Where's the old jollity of everyday That makes a holiday of common things Because they all are shared by us aright, The trivial daily work and happenings Having a sort of fervour and delight, And the sun rising, even, a 

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