Wake up again, sad heart, wake up again!
(I heard the birds this morning singing sweet.)
Wake up again! The sky was crystal clear,
	And washed quite clean with rain;
And far below my heart stirred with the year,
Stirred with the year and sighed. O pallid feet
Move now at last, O heart that sleeps with pain
	Rise up and hear
The voices in the valleys run to meet
The songs and shadows. O wake up again!

Put out green leaves, dead tree, put out green leaves!
(Last night the moon was soft and kissed the air.)
Put out green leaves! The moon was in the skies,
	All night she wakes and weaves.
The dew was on the grass like fairies' eyes,
Like fairies eyes. O tree so black and bare,
Remember all the fruits, the full gold sheaves;
	For nothing dies,
the songs that are, are silences that were,
Summer was Winter. O put out green leaves!

Break through the earth, pale flower, break through the earth!
(All day the lark has sung a madrigal.)
Break through the earth that lies not lightly yet
	And waits thy patient birth,
Waits for the jonquil and the violet,
The violet. Full soon the heavy pall
Will be a bed, and in the noon of mirth
	Some rivulet
Will bubble in my wilderness, some call
Will touch my silence. O break through the earth.

Most tuneful singer, lover tenderest,
Most sad, most piteous, and most musical,
Thine is the shrine more pilgrim-worn than all
The shrines of singers; high above the rest
Thy trumpet sounds most loud, most manifest.
Yet better were it if a lonely call
Of woodland birds, a song, a madrigal,
Were all the jetsam of thy sea's unrest.

For now thy praises have become too loud
On vulgar lips, and every yelping cur
Yaps thee a paean; the whiles little men,
Not tall enough to worship in a crowd,
Spit their small wits at thee. Ah! better then
The broken shrine, the lonely worshipper.

I gaze across the Nile; flamelike and red
The sun goes down, and all the western sky
Is drowned in somber crimson; wearily
A great bird flaps along with wings of lead,
Black on the rose-red river. Over my head
The sky is hard green bronze, beneath me lie
The sleeping ships; there is no sound, or sigh
Of the wind's breath, — a stillness of the dead.

Over a palm tree's top I see the peaks
Of the tall pyramids; and though my eyes
Are barred from it, I know that on the sand
Crouches a thing of stone that in some wise
Broods on my heart; and from the darkening land
Creeps Fear and to my soul in whisper speaks.

— British Agency, Cairo, 1893

Night Coming Into a Garden

Roses red and white,
Every rose is hanging her head,
Silently comes the lady Night,
Only the flowers can hear her tread.

All day long the birds have been calling,
Calling shrill and sweet,
They are still when she comes with her long robe falling,
Falling down to her feet.

The thrush has sung to his mate,
“She is coming! hush! she is coming!”
She is lifting the latch at the gate,
And the bees have ceased from their humming.

I cannot see her face as she passes
Through my garden of white and red;
But I know she is walking where the daisies and grasses
Are curtseying after her tread.

She has passes me by with a rustle and sweep
Of her robe (as she passed I heard it sweeping),
And all my red roses have fallen asleep,
And all my white roses are sleeping.