Softly the feathery Palm-trees fade in the violet Distance,
Faintly the lingering light touches the edge of the sea,
Sadly the Music of Waves, drifts, faint as an Anthem's insistence,
Heard in the aisles of a dream, over the sandhills, to me.

Now that the Lights are reversed, and the Singing changed into sighing,
Now that the wings of our fierce, fugitive passion are furled,
Take I unto myself, all alone in the light that is dying,
Much of the sorrow that lies hid at the Heart of the World.

Sad am I, sad for your loss: for failing the charm of your presence,
Even the sunshine has paled, leaving the Zenith less blue.
Even the ocean lessens the light of its green opalescence,
Since, to my sorrow I loved, loved and grew weary of, you.

Why was our passion so fleetin...

No longer than what time Latona's twins
Cover'd of Libra and the fleecy star,
Together both, girding the' horizon hang,
In even balance from the zenith pois'd,
Till from that verge, each, changing hemisphere,
Part the nice level; e'en so brief a space
Did Beatrice's silence hold. A smile
Bat painted on her cheek; and her fix'd gaze
Bent on the point, at which my vision fail'd:
When thus her words resuming she began:
"I speak, nor what thou wouldst inquire demand;
For I have mark'd it, where all time and place
Are present. Not for increase to himself
Of good, which may not be increas'd, but forth
To manifest his glory by its beams,
Inhabiting his own eternity,
Beyond time's limit or what bound soe'er
To circumscribe his being, as he will'd,
Into new n...

    You wrote:
    "Come over to Saugatuck
    And be with me on the warm sand,
    And under cool beeches and aromatic cedars."
    And just then no one could do a thing in the city
    For the lure of far places, and something that tugged
    At one's heart because of a June sky,
    And stretches of blue water,
    And a warm wind blowing from the south.
    What could I do but take a boat
    And go to meet you?

    And when to-day is not enough,
    But you must live to-morrow also;
    And when the present stands in the way
    Of something to come,
    And there is but one you would see,
    All the interval of waiting is a wall.
    And so it was I walked the landward deck
    With flapping coat and hat pulled down;
    And I sat o...

"A hunter of shadows, himself a shade."--HOMER.


Oh! weary sleeper by the lone sea-shore,
    Where billows toil for ever 'mid the rocks,
    Scourged on by winds in stormy equinox,
Rise! rise in haste, or slumber evermore!
    The stern Earth calls thee, and the Ocean mocks;
    Roll thy poor sightless orbs about the sky,
    Through tears of blind and powerless agony;
Rise! rise in haste, or slumber evermore!

Ay! blind I stand beside the lone sea-shore;
    Hearing the mighty murmur of the waves,
    Shaking with giant arms earth's architraves,
Scaling the riven cloud-crags bald and boar,
    Surging hoarse secrets through the central caves;
    God! shall thine ocean undiscernèd roll,
    Night on mine eyes, and darkness on my soul,
Groping...

The night lamp is faintly gleaming
    Within my chamber still,
And the heavy shades of midnight
    Each gloomy angle fill,
And my worn and weary watchers
    Scarce dare to move or weep,
For they think that I am buried
    In deep and quiet sleep.

But, hush! what are those voices
    Heard on the midnight air,
Of strange celestial sweetness,
    Breathing of love and prayer?
Nearer they grow and clearer,
    I hear now what they say -
To the Kingdom of God's glory,
    They're calling me away!

See my gentle mother softly
    To me approaches now,
What is the change she readeth
    Upon my pale damp brow?
She clasps her hands in anguish
    Whose depth no words might say?
Has she, too, heard the voices
    That a...

        Marvels of sleep, grown cold!
        Who hath not longed to fold
With pitying ruth, forgetful of their bliss,
        Those cherub forms that lie,
        With none to watch them nigh,
Or touch the silent lips with one warm human kiss?

        What! they are left alone
        All night with graven stone,
Pillars and arches that above them meet;
        While through those windows high
        The journeying stars can spy,
And dim blue moonbeams drop on their uncovered feet?

        O cold! yet look again,
        There is a wandering vein
Traced in the hand where those white snowdrops lie.
        Let her rapt dreamy smile
        The wondering heart beguile,
That almost thinks to hear a calm contented sigh.

        What s...

    Still must your hands withhold your loveliness?
        Is your soul jealous of your body still?
    The fair white limbs beneath the clouding dress
        Are such hard forms as you alone could fill
    With life and sweetness.    Such a harmony
        Is yours as music and the thought expressed
    By the musician: have no rivalry
        Between your soul and the shape in which it's drest.
    Kisses or words, both sensual, which shall be
        The burning symbol of the love we bear?
    My art is words, yours song, but still must we
        Be mute and songless, seeing how love is fair.
    Both our known arts being useless, we must turn
    To love himself and his old practice learn.

    Content Primroses,
    With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care,
    Peeping as from his mother's lap the child
    Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!--
    Hanging Harebell,
    Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes,
    Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!--
    Fluttering-wild
    Anemone, so well
    Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free,
    Yieldest thee, helpless--wilfully,
    With Take me or leave me,
    Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone!--
    Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming
    Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!--
    Fire-winged Pimpernel,
    Communing with some hidden well,
    And secrets with the sun-god holding,
    At fixed hour folding and unfolding!--
    How ...

"What hast thou seen in the olden time,
    Dark ruin, lone and gray?"
"Full many a race from thy native clime,
    And the bright earth, pass away.
The organ has pealed in these roofless aisles,
    And priests have knelt to pray
At the altar, where now the daisy smiles
    O'er their silent beds of clay.

"I've seen the strong man a wailing child,
    By his mother offered here;
I've seen him a warrior fierce and wild;
    I've seen him on his bier,
His warlike harness beside him laid
    In the silent earth to rust;
His plumed helm and trusty blade
    To moulder into dust!

"I've seen the stern reformer scorn
    The things once deemed divine,
And the bigot's zeal with gems adorn
    The altar's sacred shrine.
I've seen the si...

A little dreaming by the way,
A little toiling day by day;
A little pain, a little strife,
A little joy,--and that is life.

A little short-lived summer's morn,
When joy seems all so newly born,
When one day's sky is blue above,
And one bird sings,--and that is love.

A little sickening of the years,
The tribute of a few hot tears
Two folded hands, the failing breath,
And peace at last,--and that is death.

Just dreaming, loving, dying so,
The actors in the drama go--
A flitting picture on a wall,
Love, Death, the themes; but is that all?

    O God, whose daylight leadeth down
        Into the sunless way,
    Who with restoring sleep dost crown
        The labour of the day!

    What I have done, Lord, make it clean
        With thy forgiveness dear;
    That so to-day what might have been,
        To-morrow may appear.

    And when my thought is all astray,
        Yet think thou on in me;
    That with the new-born innocent day
        My soul rise fresh and free.

    Nor let me wander all in vain
        Through dreams that mock and flee;
    But even in visions of the brain,
        Go wandering toward thee.

When through our bodies our two spirits burn
Escaping, and no more our true eyes turn
Outwards, and no more hands to fond hands yearn;

Then over those poor grassy heaps we'll meet
One morning, tasting still the morning's sweet,
Sensible still of light, dark, rain, cold, heat;

And see 'neath the green dust that dust of gray
Which was our useless bodies laid away,
Mocked still with menace of a Judgment Day.

We then that waiting dust at last will call,
Each to the other's,--"Rise up at last, O small
Ashes that first-love held loveliest of all!

"'Tis Judgment Day, arise!" And they will arise,
The dust will lift, and spine, ribs, neck, head, knees
At the sound remember their old unities,

And stand there, yours with mine, as once they stood<...

LONELINESS
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.

HOUSE FEAR

Always I tell you this they learned
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,

[1]


'Twas in a mocking dream of night--
I fancied I had wings as light
As a young birds, and flew as fleet;
While Love, around whose beauteous feet,
I knew not why, hung chains of lead,
Pursued me, as I trembling fled;
And, strange to say, as swift as thought,
Spite of my pinions, I was caught!
What does the wanton Fancy mean
By such a strange, illusive scene?
I fear she whispers to my breast,
That you, sweet maid, have stolen its rest;
That though my fancy, for a while,
Hath hung on many a woman's smile,
I soon dissolved each passing vow,
And ne'er was caught by love till now!

They tell strange things of the primeval earth,
But things that be are never strange to those
Among them. And we know what it was like,
Many are sure they walked in it; the proof
This, the all gracious, all admired whole
Called life, called world, called thought, was all as one.
Nor yet divided more than that old earth
Among the tribes. Self was not fully come -
Self was asleep, embedded in the whole.

I too dwelt once in a primeval world,
Such as they tell of, all things wonderful;
Voices, ay visions, people grand and tall
Thronged in it, but their talk was overhead
And bore scant meaning, that one wanted not
Whose thought was sight as yet unbound of words,
This kingdom of heaven having entered through
Being a little child.

        Such as can...

Wide in the west, a lake
Of flame that seems to shake
As if the Midgard snake
Deep down did breathe:
An isle of purple glow,
Where rosy rivers flow
Down peaks of cloudy snow
With fire beneath.

And there the Tower-of-Night,
With windows all a-light,
Frowns on a burning height;
Wherein she sleeps,
Young through the years of doom,
Veiled with her hair's gold gloom,
The pale Valkyrie whom
Enchantment keeps.

    Would that such hills and cities round us sang,
    Such vistas of the actual earth and man
    As kindled Titian when his life began;
    Would that this latter Greek could put his gold,
    Wisdom and splendor in our brushes bold
    Till Greece and Venice, children of the sun,
    Become our every-day, and we aspire
    To colors fairer far, and glories higher.

Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever
Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . .)

They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,
Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin, and therein
God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,
And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal,
Till it was no more visible; then turned again
With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.