There, while they stood in a green wood And marvelled still on Ill and Good,

Came suddenly Minister Mind.
'In the heart of sin doth hell begin:
"T is not below, 't is not above,
It lieth within, it lieth within:'
(Where?' quoth Love)

'I saw a man sit by a corse;
Hell's in the murderer's breast: remorse!
Thus clamored his mind to his mind:
Not fleshly dole is the sinner's goal,
Hell's not below, nor yet above,

"T is fixed in the ever-damnèd soul'.
'Fixed?' quoth Love —

6.

Fast chained to his corse,' quoth
Mind.

Full soon they passed, for they rode fast,
Where the piteous willow bent above.
'Now shall I see at last, at last,

Hell,' quoth Love.

SUNRISE 1

In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship,

fain

Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.

The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep;

Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep,

Interwoven with waftures of wild sealiberties, drifting,

Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting,

Came to the gates of sleep.

Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep

Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep,

Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling:

10

From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow?

They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps.

Reason 's not one that weeps.
What logic of greeting lies

1 Sunrise,' Mr. Lanier's latest completed poem, was written while his sun of life seemed fairly at the setting, and the hand which first pencilled its lines had not strength to carry nourishment to the lips.

'Sunrise,' the culminating poem, the highest vision of Sidney Lanier, was dedicated through his latest request to that friend who indeed came into his life only near its close, yet was at first meeting recognized by the poet as the father of his spirit,' George Westfeldt. When words were very few and the poem was unread, even by any friend, the earnest bidding came: Send him my Sunrise," that he may know how entirely we are one in thought.' (Poems, 1884.)

But a bubble that broke in a dream,

If a bound of degree to this grace be laid,

Or a sound or a motion made.

But no: it is made: list! somewhere, — mystery, where?

100

In the leaves? in the air? In my heart? is a motion made: 'Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade.

In the leaves 't is palpable: low multitudinous stirring the little ones,

Upwinds through the woods; softly conferring,

Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so; they are still;

But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill,

And look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the river,

And look where a passionate shiver
Expectant is bending the blades

Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades,

And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting,

Are beating

110

The dark overhead as my heart beats,and steady and free

Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea (Run home, little streams,

With your lapfulls of stars and dreams), And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak, For list, down the inshore curve of the creek How merrily flutters the sail, And lo, in the East! Will the East unveil? The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed

120

A flush: 't is dead; 't is alive: 't is dead, ere the West

Was aware of it: nay, 't is abiding, 't is unwithdrawn:

Have a care, sweet Heaven! "Tis Dawn.

Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled.