The woods decay, the woods decay and fall.

I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods.

Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; ... 'So careful of the type', but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go' ... Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law- Tho' Nature red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed.

What! I should call on that Infinite Love that has served us so well? Infinite cruelty rather, that made everlasting hell, Made us, foreknew us, foredoom'd us, and does what he will with his own; Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan.

Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed, And up there grew a flower, That others called a weed.

The many fail: the one succeeds.

Ah, Christ, that it were possible, For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be.