Art thou asleep? or have thy wings
Wearied of my unchanging skies?
Or, haply, is it fading dreams
Are in my eyes?

Not even an echo in my heart
Tells me the courts thy feet trod last,
Bare as a leafless wood it is,
The summer past.

My inmost mind is like a book
The reader dulls with lassitude,
Wherein the same old lovely words
Sound poor and rude.

Yet through this vapid surface, I
Seem to see old-time deeps; I see,
Past the dark painting of the hour,
Life's ecstasy.

Only a moment; as when day
Is set, and in the shade of night,
Through all the clouds that compassed her,
Stoops into sight

Pale, changeless, everlasting Dian,
Gleams on the prone Endymion,
Troubles the dulness of his dreams:
And then i...

There was a sound of music low--
    An undertone of laughter;
The song was done, and can't you guess
    The words that followed after?

Like autumn leaves sometimes they fall--
    The words that burn and falter;
And is it true they too must fade
    Upon Love's sacred alter?

From memory each one of us
    Can cull some sweetest treasure;
Yet golden days, like golden leaves,
    Give pain as well as pleasure.

There was a sound of music low--
    An undertone of laughter:
The sun was gone--yet heaven knew
    The stars that followed after.

Yes, thou mayst sigh,
And look once more at all around,
At stream and bank, and sky and ground.
Thy life its final course has found,
And thou must die.

Yes, lay thee down,
And while thy struggling pulses flutter,
Bid the grey monk his soul mass mutter,
And the deep bell its death tone utter,
Thy life is gone.

Be not afraid.
'Tis but a pang, and then a thrill,
A fever fit, and then a chill,
And then an end of human ill,
For thou art dead.

The gentleness of rain was in the wind.

Last night I saw you in my sleep:
And how your charm of face was changed!
I asked, “Some love, some faith you keep?”
You answered, “Faith gone, love estranged.”

Whereat I woke, a twofold bliss:
Waking was one, but next there came
This other: “Though I felt, for this,
My heart break, I loved on the same.”

The quiet August noon has come,
A slumberous silence fills the sky,
The fields are still, the woods are dumb,
In glassy sleep the waters lie.

And mark yon soft white clouds that rest
Above our vale, a moveless throng;
The cattle on the mountain's breast
Enjoy the grateful shadow long.

Oh, how unlike those merry hours
In early June when Earth laughs out,
When the fresh winds make love to flowers,
And woodlands sing and waters shout.

When in the grass sweet voices talk,
And strains of tiny music swell
From every moss-cup of the rock,
From every nameless blossom's bell.

But now a joy too deep for sound,
A peace no other season knows,
Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground,
The blessing of supreme repose.

Away! I ...

All things are seamless,
As though forgotten, light and dull.
From the sacred heights the green sky spills
Still water on the city.
Glazed cobblers' lamps shine.
Empty bakeries are waiting.
People in the street, astonished, stride
Towards a miracle.
A copper red goblin runs
Up towards the roof, up and down.
Little girls fall, sobbing
From the poles of street lights.

Oh, unforgotten and only lover,
Many years have swept us apart,
But none of the long dividing seasons
Slay your memory in my heart.
In the clash and clamour of things unlovely
My thoughts drift back to the times that were,
When I, possessing thy pale perfection,
Kissed the eyes and caressed the hair.

Other passions and loves have drifted
Over this wandering, restless soul,
Rudderless, chartless, floating always
With some new current of chance control.
But thine image is clear in the whirling waters -
Ah, forgive - that I drag it there,
For it is so part of my very being
That where I wander it too must fare.

Ah, I have given thee strange companions,
To thee - so slender and chaste and cool -
But a white star loses no glimmer of beauty

The fields which with covetous spirit we sold,
Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day,
Would have brought us more good than a burthen of gold,
Could we but have been as contented as they.

When the troublesome Tempter beset us, said I,
"Let him come, with his purse proudly grasped in his hand;
But, Allan, be true to me, Allan, we'll die
Before he shall go with an inch of the land!"

There dwelt we, as happy as birds in their bowers;
Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide;
We could do what we liked with the land, it was ours;
And for us the brook murmured that ran by its side.

But now we are strangers, go early or late;
And often, like one overburthened with sin,
With my hand on the latch of the half-opened gate,
I look at the fields, but I...

Sleep is supposed to be,
By souls of sanity,
The shutting of the eye.

Sleep is the station grand
Down which on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!

Morn is supposed to be,
By people of degree,
The breaking of the day.

Morning has not occurred!
That shall aurora be
East of eternity;

One with the banner gay,
One in the red array, --
That is the break of day.

Did we but know what lurks beyond the NOW;
Could we but see what the dim future hides;
Had we some power occult that would us show
The joy and sorrow which in THEN abides;
Would life be happier, - or less fraught with woe,
Did we but know?

I long, yet fear to pierce those clouds ahead; -
To solve life's secrets, - learn what means this death.
Are fresh joys waiting for the silent dead?
Or do we perish with am fleeting breath?
If not; then whither will the spirit go?
Did we but know.

'Tis all a mist. Reason can naught explain,
We dream and scheme for what to-morrow brings;
We sleep, perchance, and never wake again,
Nor taste life's joys, or suffer sorrow's stings.
Will the soul soar, or will it sink below?
How can we know.

"You must ...

Still, like dew in silence falling,
    Drops for thee the nightly tear
Still that voice the past recalling,
    Dwells, like echo, on my ear,
        Still, still!

Day and night the spell hangs o'er me,
    Here forever fixt thou art:
As thy form first shone before me,
    So 'tis graven on this heart,
        Deep, deep!

Love, oh Love, whose bitter sweetness,
    Dooms me to this lasting pain.
Thou who earnest with so much fleetness,
Why so slow to go again?
    Why? why?

I cannot quite recall
When first he came,
So reticent and tall,
With his eyes of flame.

The neighbors used to say
(They know so much!)
He looked to them half way
Spanish or Dutch.

Outlandish certainly
He is--and queer!
He has been lodged with me
This thirty year;

All the while (it seems absurd!)
We hardly have
Exchanged a single word.
Mum as the grave!

Minds only his own affairs,
Goes out and in,
And keeps himself upstairs
With his violin.

Mum did I say? And yet
That talking smile
You never can forget,
Is all the while

Full of such sweet reproofs
The darkest day,
Like morning on the roofs
In flush of May.

Like autumn on the hills;
At four o'clock
The...

I hear a voice low in the sunset woods;
    Listen, it says: "Decay, decay, decay!"
I hear it in the murmuring of the floods,
    And the wind sighs it as it flies away.
Autumn is come; seest thou not in the skies,
The stormy light of his fierce lurid eyes?
Autumn is come; his brazen feet have trod,
Withering and scorching, o'er the mossy sod.
The fainting year sees her fresh flowery wreath
Shrivel in his hot grasp; his burning breath
Dries the sweet water-springs that in the shade
Wandering along, delicious music made.
A flood of glory hangs upon the world,
Summer's bright wings shining ere they are furled.

See him quake and see him tremble,
    See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
    This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
    Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he's tasted -
    He has lived a year.

He has passed his day of glory,
    All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
    He is very old.
Just a leaf's life in the wild wood,
    Is a love's life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
    When he's lived a year.

Long ago he lost his reason,
    Lost his trust and faith -
Better far in his first season
    Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
    No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
    Love that's lived a year...

I.

Morning

Her rain-kissed face is fresh as rain,
Is cool and fresh as a rain-wet leaf;
She glimmers at my window-pane,
And all my grief
Becomes a feeble rushlight, seen no more
When the gold of her gown sweeps in my door.

II.

Forenoon

Great blurs of woodland waved with wind;
Gray paths, down which October came,
That now November's blasts have thinned
And flecked with fiercer flame,
Are her delight. She loves to lie
Regarding with a gray-blue eye
The far-off hills that hold the sky:
And I I lie and gaze with her
Beyond the autumn woods and ways
Into the hope of coming days,
The spring that nothing shall deter,
That puts my soul in unison
With what's to do and what is done.

III.

N...

A harebell hung her wilful head:
"I am tired, so tired! I wish I was dead."

She hung her head in the mossy dell:
"If all were over, then all were well!"

The Wind he heard, and was pitiful,
And waved her about to make her cool.

"Wind, you are rough!" said the dainty Bell;
"Leave me alone--I am not well."

The Wind, at the word of the drooping dame,
Sighed to himself and ceased in shame.

"I am hot, so hot!" she moaned and said;
"I am withering up; I wish I was dead!"

Then the Sun he pitied her woeful case,
And drew a thick veil over his face.

"Cloud go away, and don't be rude,"
She said; "I do not see why you should!"

The Cloud withdrew. Then the Harebell cried,
"I am faint, so faint!--and no water beside!"

Go then, if she, whose shade thou art,
    No more will let thee soothe my pain;
Yet, tell her, it has cost this heart
    Some pangs, to give thee back again.

Tell her, the smile was not so dear,
    With which she made the semblance mine,
As bitter is the burning tear,
    With which I now the gift resign.

Yet go--and could she still restore,
    As some exchange for taking thee.
The tranquil look which first I wore,
    When her eyes found me calm and free;

Could she give back the careless flow,
    The spirit that my heart then knew--
Yet, no, 'tis vain--go, picture, go--
    Smile at me once, and then--adieu!