Helen Gray Cone

Though pent in stony streets, 'tis joy to know,
'Tis joy, although we breathe a fainter air,
The spirit of those places far and fair
...

Day in, day out, or sun or rain,
Or sallow leaf, or summer grain,
Beneath a wintry morning moon
Or through red smouldering afternoon,
...

Thou wast not robbed of wonder when youth fled,
But still the bud had promise to thine eyes,
And beauty was not sundered from surprise,
...

There stands by the wood-path shaded
A meek little beggar maid;
Close under her mantle faded
She is hidden like one afraid.
...

Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old fashion,
English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way,
Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passion
Of man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day!
...

To westward lies the unseen sea,
Blue sea the live winds wander o'er.
The many-colored sails can flee,
And leave the dead, low-lying shore.
...

I was quick in the flesh, was warm, and the live heart shook my breast;
In the market I bought and sold, in the temple I bowed my head.
...

'Not ye who have stoned, not ye who have smitten us,' cry
The sad, great souls, as they go out hence into dark,
...

Upon a showery night and still,
Without a sound of warning,
A trooper band surprised the hill,
And held it in the morning.
...

There's a wood-way winding high,
Roofed far up with light-green flicker,
Save one midmost star of sky.
Underfoot 'tis all pale brown
...

When the charm at last is fled
From the woodland stark and pale,
And like shades of glad hours dead
Whirl the leaves before the gale:
...

Life's House being ready all,
Each chamber fair and dumb,
Ere life, the Lord, is come
...

'There needs no crown to mark the forest's king.'
Thus, long ago thou sang'st the sound-heart tree
Sacred to sovereign Jove, and dear to thee
...

'Faces, faces, faces of the streaming marching surge,
Streaming on the weary road, toward the awful steep,
...

The eastern heaven was all faint amethyst,
Whereon the moon hung dreaming in the mist;
To north yet drifted one long delicate plume
...

Mine enemy builded well, with the soft blue hills in sight;
But betwixt his house and the hills I builded a house for spite:
...

One soiled and shamed and foiled in this world's fight,
Deserter from the host of God, that here
Still darkly struggles,-waked from death in fear,
...

Into what beech or silvern birch, O friend
Suspected ever of a dryad strain,
Hast crept at last, delighting to regain
...

The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.
...

'T was a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory,
English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door,
...