Poem by Helen Gray Cone

A Mystery

That sunless day no living shadow swept
Across the hills, fleet shadow chasing light,
Twin of the sailing cloud: but, mists wool white,
Slow-stealing mists, on those heaved shoulders crept,
And wrought about the strong hills while they slept
In witches' wise, and rapt their forms from sight.
Dreams were they; less than dream, the noblest height
And farthest; and the chilly woodland wept.

     A sunless day and sad: yet all the while
Within the grave green twilight of the wood,
inscrutable, immutable, apart,
Hearkening the brook, whose song she understood,
The secret birch-tree kept her silver smile,
Strange as the peace that gleams at sorrow's heart.

1. Retrospect
2. The Going out of the Tide
3. Madonna Pia
4. The Trumpeter
5. The Gifts of the Oak

Philip Bailey A Mystery ("Friend! many a year hath passed")

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