He sings.
I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
In this my singing.
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice’ streets to leave one space
Above me, whence thy face
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

She speaks.
Say after me, and try to say
My very words, as if each word
Came from you of your own accord,
In your own voice, in your own way:
“This woman’s heart and soul and brain
“Are mine as much as this gold chain
“She bids me wear; which” (say again)
“I choose to make by cherishing
“A precious thing, or choose to fling
“Over the boat-side, ring by ring.”
And yet once more say . . . no word more!
Since words are only words. Give o’er!
Unless you c...

The pink rose drops its petals on
The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;
The moon, like some wide rose of white,
Drops down the summer night.
No rose there is
As sweet as this
Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.

The lattice of thy casement twines
With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;
The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie
About the glimmering sky.
No jasmine tress
Can so caress
As thy white arms' soft loveliness.

About thy door magnolia blooms
Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;
A moon-magnolia is the dusk
Closed in a dewy husk.
However much,
No bloom gives such
Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.

The flowers, blooming now, shall pass,
And strew the grass, and strew the grass;
The night, like som...

    The time is all so short. One week is much
        To be without your deep and peaceful eyes,
    Your soft and all-contenting cheek, the touch
        Of well-caressing hands.    O were we wise
    We would not love too strongly, would not bind
        Life into life so inextricably,
    That the dumb body suffers with the mind
        In a sad partnership this agony.
    For death will come and swallow up us two,
        You there, I here, and we shall lie apart,
    Out of the houses and the woods we knew.
        Then in the lonely grave, my dust-choked heart
    Out of the dust will raise, if it can speak,
    A threnody for this lost, lovely week.

I am wild, I will sing to the trees,
I will sing to the stars in the sky,
I love, I am loved, he is mine,
Now at last I can die!

I am sandaled with wind and with flame,
I have heart-fire and singing to give,
I can tread on the grass or the stars,
Now at last I can live!

Thank God!    Those gazers' eyes are gone at last!
The guards are crouching underneath the rock;
The lights are fading in the town below,
Around the cottage which this morn was ours.
Kind sun, to set, and leave us here alone;
Alone upon our crosses with our God;
While all the angels watch us from the stars.
Kind moon, to shine so clear and full on him,
And bathe his limbs in glory, for a sign
Of what awaits him!    Oh look on him, Lord!
Look, and remember how he saved thy lamb!
    Oh listen to me, teacher, husband, love,
Never till now loved utterly!    Oh say,
Say you forgive me!    No - you must not speak:
You said it to me hours ago - long hours!
Now you must rest, and when to-morrow comes
Speak to the people, call them home to God,
A deacon on the Cr...

Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose
From out night's gray and cloudy sheath;
Softly and still it grows and grows,
Petal by petal, leaf by leaf;
Each sleep-imprisoned creature breaks
Its dreamy fetters, one by one,
And love awakes, and labor wakes,--
The morning comes before the sun.

What is this message from the light
So fairer far than light can be?
Youth stands a-tiptoe, eager, bright,
In haste the risen sun to see;
Ah! check thy lunging, restless heart,
Count the charmed moments as they run,
It is life's best and fairest part,
This morning hour before the sun.

When once thy day shall burst to flower,
When once the sun shall climb the sky,
And busy hour by busy hour,
The urgent noontide draws anigh;
When the long shadows creep...

Within this little book of thine,
Are thoughts of many a friendly mind,
Express'd in words, on which you'll gaze
In after years, with feelings kind.

And while you're scanning o'er each page,
These lines I write, perchance you'll see,
And tho' they're penn'd by careless hand,
You'll know that they are penn'd by me.

Perhaps you'll think of school-days then,
Of happy school-days, long since past,
When you and I, in careless youth,
Thought that those days would always last.

After the May time, and after the June time
    Rare with blossoms and perfumes sweet,
Cometh the round world's royal noon time,
    The red midsummer of blazing heat.
When the sun, like an eye that never closes,
    Bends on the earth its fervid gaze,
And the winds are still, and the crimson roses
    Droop and wither and die in its rays.

Unto my heart has come that season,
    O my lady, my worshiped one,
When over the stars of Pride and Reason
    Sails Love's cloudless, noonday sun.
Like a great red ball in my bosom burning
    With fires that nothing can quench or tame.
It glows till my heart itself seems turning
    Into a liquid lake of flame.

The hopes half shy, and the sighs all tender,
    The dreams and fears of an earlier day,

Wealth and dominion fade into the mass
Of the great sea of human right and wrong,
When once from our possession they must pass;
But love, though misdirected, is among
The things which are immortal, and surpass
All that frail stuff which will be - or which was.

You are here, and you are wanted,
    Though a waif upon life's stair;
Though the sunlit hours are haunted
    With the shadowy shapes of care.
Still the Great One, the All-Seeing
Called your spirit into being -
Gave you strength for any fate.
Since your life by Him was needed,
All your ways by Him are heeded -
    You can trust and you can wait.

You can wait to know the meaning
    Of the troubles sent your soul;
Of the chasms intervening
    'Twixt your purpose and your goal;
Of the sorrows and the trials,
Of the silence and denials,
    Ofttimes answering to your pleas;
Of the stinted sweets of pleasure,
And of pain's too generous measure -
    You can wait the WHY of these.

Forth from planet unto planet,
    You have go...

Like a dew-drop from heaven in the ocean of life,
    From the morn's rosy diadem falling,
A stranger as yet to the storms and the strife,
    Dear babe, of thy earthly calling!

Thine eyes have unclosed on this valley of tears;
    Hark! that cry is the herald of anguish and woe;
Thy young spirit finds a deep voice for its fears,
    Prophetic of all that is passing below.

How short will the term of thy ignorance be!
    The winds and the tempests will rise,
And passion will cover with wrecks the calm sea,
On whose surface no shadow now lies.

Unclouded and fair is the morn of thy birth,
    The first lovely day in a season of gloom;
Whilst a pilgrim and stranger thou treadest this earth,
    May the sunbeams of hope gild thy path to the tomb.

Oh! hide those tempting eyes, that faultless form,
Those looks with feeling and with nature warm;
The neck, the softly-swelling bosom hide,
Nor, wanton gales, blow the light vest aside;
For who, when beauties more than life excite
Silent applause, can gaze without delight!
But innocence, enchanting maid, is thine;
Thine eyes in liquid light unconscious shine;
And may thy breast no other feelings prove,
Than those of sympathy and mutual love!

Equal to Jove that youth must be -
Greater than Jove he seems to me -
Who, free from Jealousy's alarms,
Securely views thy matchless charms;
That cheek, which ever dimpling glows,
That mouth, from whence such music flows,
To him, alike, are always known,
Reserv'd for him, and him alone.
Ah! Lesbia! though 'tis death to me,
I cannot choose but look on thee;
But, at the sight, my senses fly,
I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die;
Whilst trembling with a thousand fears,
Parch'd to the throat my tongue adheres,
My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short,
My limbs deny their slight support;
Cold dews my pallid face o'erspread,
With deadly languor droops my head,
My ears with tingling echoes ring,
And Life itself is on the wing;
My eyes refuse th...

The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,
From sea or earth comes no reply;
Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.

No victory comes of all our strife,
From all we grasp the meaning slips;
The Sphinx sits at the gate of life,
With the old question on her awful lips.

In paths unknown we hear the feet
Of fear before, and guilt behind;
We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat
Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.

From age to age descends unchecked
The sad bequest of sire to son,
The body's taint, the mind's defect;
Through every web of life the dark threads run.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF HER LATE ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES.

OVERTURE A SOLEMN DIRGE. AIR TRIO.

Arise, ye sons of worth, arise,
And waken every note of woe;
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below!

CHORUS.
When truth and virtue, etc.

MAN SPEAKER.
The praise attending pomp and power,
The incense given to kings,
Are but the trappings of an hour
Mere transitory things!
The base bestow them: but the good agree
To spurn the venal gifts as flattery.
But when to pomp and power are join'd
An equal dignity of mind
When titles are the smallest claim
When wealth and rank and noble blood,
But aid the power of doing good
Then all their trophies last; and flattery turns to fame.

ART.


One is so fair, I turn to go,
As others go, its beckoning length;
Such paths can never lead to woe,
I say in eager, early strength.
What is the goal?
Visions of heaven, wake;
But the wind's whispers round me roll:
"For you, mistake!"


LOVE.


One leads beneath high oaks, and birds
Choose there their joyous revelry;
The sunbeams glint in golden herds,
The river mirrors silently.
Under these trees
My heart would bound or break;
Tell me what goal, resonant breeze?
"For you, mistake!"


CHARITY.


What is there left? The arid way,
The chilling height, whence all the world
Looks little, and each radiant day,
Like the soul's banner, flies unfurled.
May I stand here;
In ...

1.
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, -
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

2.
Thou chosen sister of the Spirit,
That grazes on thee till in thee it pities...

As still Savitri sat beside
Her husband dying,--dying fast,
She saw a stranger slowly glide
Beneath the boughs that shrunk aghast.
Upon his head he wore a crown
That shimmered in the doubtful light;
His vestment scarlet reached low down,
His waist, a golden girdle dight.
His skin was dark as bronze; his face
Irradiate, and yet severe;
His eyes had much of love and grace,
But glowed so bright, they filled with fear.

A string was in the stranger's hand
Noosed at its end. Her terrors now
Savitri scarcely could command.
Upon the sod beneath a bough,
She gently laid her husband's head,
And in obeisance bent her brow.
"No mortal form is thine,"--she said,
"Beseech thee say what god art thou?
And what can be thine errand here?"
"Savitri...