We watch in wonder how thy brow Grows strange and silent in sleep, and how Even more silent and more strange Thy waking is that brings no change When thy dim dreams of slumber press To dimmer dreamlessness.
But looking with a love that seems To pierce thy undiscovered dreams, Within thy small unfolded being Some dream of our own making seeing, “All that she feels and dreams,” we say, “We too will know one day.”
Ah, even when human speech has come To make thy mouth no longer dumb, When quickened thought and sympathy Like angels look from either eye, Thyself will still be hidden as deep As now, awake, asleep.
We must our knowledge of thee still By nothing save by love fulfil, And with the dreamings of the heart Still guess at the dream of what thou art Which only of thee and God is known, Child whom this day names Joan.
I had a holy hour last night. The room her presence made so pure Was shaded in uncertain light, But oh, the light it held was sure.
There while about her golden head The shadows and the low light played, She eagerly and softly read The shining songs her soul had made.
Flower and shell and sand and sea, And flight of gulls against the sun, And many a friend, and many a tree, And youth begun and age nigh-done,
Death and life, and life and death, Divinely in her vision smiled; She spoke them with the silver breath Half of angel, half of child.
Upon her bed I lay at rest, But once when kneeling by her chair I leaned my head beside her breast And heard the wordless singing there.
She ran with her ball in her light dress floating and free, [Illustration: leaf] Tossing it, tossing it up in the evening light, [Illustration: leaf] She ran with her ball at the edge of the outgoing sea [Illustration: leaf] On sand which the dropping sun turned bright.
Over the sea hung birds more white than the skin Of the last few swimmers who took the waves with their breasts; The birds dipped straight as her ball when a silver fin Glanced in the shallow crests.
She ran so swift, and suddenly stopped as swift To look at a shell, or splash up a pool in rain; Wind blew, and she in the wind began to drift Foam-like, and suddenly ran again.
Children who played on the shore in the last of the day Paused and watched in wonder her rise and fall Like elders watching a child: she was younger than they As she ran by the sea with her ball.