More than we know thou knewest
Of all light and sweetness,
Thou that fairly grewest
To thy brief completeness:
Hear how the hills mourn for thee!
Thou hearest but thou heedest not.
Were the green hills born for thee
Lightly thus to be forgot?
Knowing but small fairness,
Seeing but the shadow
Even of earth’s rareness
In an earthly meadow,
Yet we live in thought thereof,
And our deepest heart of being
Hath a garment wrought thereof,
Meetly fair for heaven’s seeing.
But thy vail is finer,
More thou hadst: yet fleddest
To a thing diviner
Than the light thou sheddest:
Vain is the sweet praise of thee,
What we sing but poor thou deemest,
Alien from the ways of thee;
But we thirst for what thou dreamest.
Haply now thou sendest
Down the airs of even,
Word of where thou wendest
In the ways of heaven;
But the quiet hath taken thee,
And though quick with longing calleth
Many a voice to waken thee,
Silence on thine answer falleth.
More than we know thou knewest
Of all light and sweetness,
Thou that fairly grewest
To thy brief completeness:
Hear how the hills mourn for thee!
Thou hearest but thou heedest not.
Were the green hills born for thee
Lightly thus to be forgot?
1918.