Gentle lady, do not sing
Sad songs about the end of love;
Lay aside sadness and sing
How love that passes is enough.

Sing about the long deep sleep
Of lovers that are dead, and how
In the grave all love shall sleep:
Love is aweary now.

Come, walk with me and Memory;
And let us see what we shall see:
A wild green lane of stones and weeds
That to a wilder woodland leads.
An old board gate, the lichens crust,
Whose ancient hinges croak with rust.
A vale; a creek; and a bridge of planks,
And the wild sunflowers that wall its banks:
A path that winds through shine and shade
To a ferned and wildflowered forest glade;
Where, out of a grotto, a voice replies
With a faint hollo to your voice that cries:
And every wind that passes seems
A foot that follows from Lands o' Dreams.
A voice, a foot, and a shadow, too,
That whispers of things your childhood knew:
A girl that waited, a boy that came,
And an old beech tree where he carved her name;
Where still he sees her, whom still he hears
B...

As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose,
Float in the garden when no wind blows,
Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;

So the old tunes float in my mind,
And go from me leaving no trace behind,
Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind.

But in the instant the airs remain
I know the laughter and the pain
Of times that will not come again.

I try to catch at many a tune
Like petals of light fallen from the moon,
Broken and bright on a dark lagoon,

But they float away, for who can hold
Youth, or perfume or the moon's gold?

O'er the Campagna it is dim warm weather;
    The Spring comes with a full heart silently,
    And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea
Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather.

With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together
    Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers.
    Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers,
Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether.

I fain would put my hands about thy face,
    Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring,
    And draw thee to me like a mournful child.

Thou lookest on me from another place;
    I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing
    That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild.

Mock me no more with Love's beguiling dream,
    A dream, I find, illusory as sweet:
One smile of friendship, nay, of cold esteem,
    Far dearer were than passion's bland deceit!

I've heard you oft eternal truth declare;
    Your heart was only mine, I once believed.
Ah! shall I say that all your vows were air?
    And must I say, my hopes were all deceived?

Vow, then, no longer that our souls are twined
    That all our joys are felt with mutual zeal;
Julia!--'tis pity, pity makes you kind;
    You know I love, and you would seem to feel.

But shall I still go seek within those arms
    A joy in which affection takes no part?
No, no, farewell! you give me but your charms,
    When I had fondly thought you gave your heart.

At this particular time I have no one
Particular person to grieve for, though there must
Be many, many unknown ones going to dust
Slowly, not remembered for what they have done
Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve
Being impartial, unable to deceive.

How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,
And, by that fact gives my grief purity,
An important person quite apart from me
Or one obscure who drifted down alone.
Both or all I remember, have a place.
For these I never encountered face to face.

Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out
Wishing to give these classical repose,
No epitaph, no poppy and no rose
From me, and certainly no wish to learn about
The way they lived or died. In earth or fire
They are gone. Simply because they were human...

The sky, grown dull through many waiting days,
Flashed into crimson with the sunrise charm,
So all my love, aroused to vague alarm,
Flushed into fire and burned with eager blaze.
I saw thee not as suppliant, with still gaze
Of pleading, but as victor, - and thine arm
Gathered me fast into embraces warm,
And I was taught the light of Love's dear ways.

This day of triumph is no longer thine,
Oh conqueror, in calm exclusive power. -
As evermore, through storm, and shade, and shine,
    Your woe my pain, your joy my ecstasy,
We breathe together, - so this blessed hour
    Of self-surrender makes my jubilee!

I touched the heart that loved me as a player
    Touches a lyre; content with my poor skill
    No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still
I thought at times: Is there no sweet lost air
Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?).
    Oh, he alone, alone could so fulfil
    My thoughts in sound to the measure of my will.
He is gone, and silence takes me unaware.

The songs I knew not he resumes, set free
From my constraining love, alas for me!
    His part in our tune goes with him; my part
Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute
    As one with full strong music in his heart
Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute.

Our lives, discoloured with our present woes,
May still grow white and shine with happier hours.
So the pure limped stream, when foul with stains
Of rushing torrents and descending rains,
Works itself clear, and as it runs refines,
till by degrees the floating mirror shines;
Reflects each flower that on the border grows,
And a new heaven in it's fair bosom shows.

Three weeks since there was no such rose in being;
Now may eyes made dim with deep delight
See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing
Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight.
Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses,
Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright.
Heaven and earth, till a man's life wanes and closes,
Show not life or love a lovelier sight.
Three weeks past have renewed the rosebright creature
Day by day with life, and night by night.
Love, though fain of its every faultless feature,
Finds not words to match the silent sight.

Brief while they last,
Long when they are gone;
They catch from the past
A light to still live on.

Brief! yet I ween
A day may be an age,
The poet's pen may screen
Heart-stories on one page.

Brief! but in them,
From eve back to morn,
Some find the gem,
Many find the thorn.

Brief! minutes pass
Soft as flakes of snow,
Shadows o'er the grass
Could not swifter go.

Brief! but along
All the after-years
To-day will be a song
Of smiles or of tears.

Men talk and dream of better days
Of a golden time to come;
Toward a happy and shining goal
They run with a ceaseless hum.
The world grows old and grows young again,
Still hope of the better is bright to men.

Hope leads us in at the gate of life;
She crowns the boyish head;
Her bright lamp lures the stalwart youth,
Nor burns out with the gray-haired dead;
For the grave closes over his trouble and care,
But see on the grave Hope is planted there!

'Tis not an empty and flattering deceit,
Begot in a foolish brain;
For the heart speaks loud with its ceaseless throbs,
"We are not born in vain";
And the words that out of the heart-throbs roll,
They cannot deceive the hoping soul.

Summer may come, in sun-blonde splendor,
To reap the harvest that Springtime sows;
And Fall lead in her old defender,
Winter, all huddled up in snows:
Ever a-south the love-wind blows
Into my heart, like a vane asway
From face to face of the girls it knows--
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.

If Carrie smile or Maud look tender,
Straight in my bosom the gladness glows;
But scarce at their side am I all surrender
When Gertrude sings where the garden grows:
And my heart is a bloom, like the red rose shows
For her hand to gather and toss away,
Or wear on her breast, as her fancy goes--
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.

Let Laura pass, as a sapling slender,
Her cheek a berry, her mouth a rose,--
Or Blanche or Helen,--to each I re...

O gentle sleep! do they belong to thee,
These twinklings of oblivion? Thou dost love
To sit in meekness, like the brooding Dove,
A captive never wishing to be free.
This tiresome night, O Sleep! thou art to me
A Fly, that up and down himself doth shove
Upon a fretful rivulet, now above
Now on the water vexed with mockery.
I have no pain that calls for patience, no;
Hence am I cross and peevish as a child:
Am pleased by fits to have thee for my foe,
Yet ever willing to be reconciled:
O gentle Creature! do not use me so,
But once and deeply let me be beguiled.

Down in the deeps of dark despair and woe; -
Of Death expectant; - Hope I put aside;
Counting the heartbeats, slowly, yet more slow, -
Marking the lazy ebb of life's last tide.
Sweet Resignation, with her opiate breath,
Spread a light veil, oblivious, o'er the past,
And all unwilling handmaid to remorseless Death,
Shut out the pain of life's great scene, - the last.

When, lo! from out the mist a slender form
Took shape and forward pressed and two bright eyes
Shone as two stars that gleam athwart the storm,
Grandly serene, amid the cloud-fleck'd skies.
"Not yet," she said, "there are some sands to run,
Ere he has reached life's limit, and no grain
Shall lie unused. Then, when his fight is done,
Pronounce the verdict, - be it loss or gain."

I felt he...

Oh! say, shall those ties, now so sacred and dear,
That with rainbow hues tint all our wanderings here,
Be regarded no more in that heavenly sphere
Whose portal's the grave?

When, "washed and forgiven," our spirits ascend
To the home of the blest where all sorrowings end,
O, will not a parent, a sister, a friend,
Haste to welcome us there?

Shall we see no loved form we have gazed on before,
To commune with of times that are faded and o'er?
Will the "dear chosen few" be remembered no more
In that haven of bliss?

O my heart must believe, 'mid ethereal chimes
A gloom would steal over my spirit sometimes,
If the friends I have loved, in these heavenly climes,
Seemed to know me no more.

But hope fondly whispers it shall not be so;
Each ...

In sad procession borne away
    To sound of funeral knell,
Affection's tribute thus we pay,
And in earth's shelt'ring bosom lay
The friend to whom but yesterday
    We gave the sad farewell.

But scarce the melancholy sound
    Has died upon the ear,
Before the mournful dirge is drowned
By wedding-anthems' glad rebound,
That stir the solemn air around
    With merry peals and clear.

Within our home doth gladness tread
    So closely upon grief
That, in the tears of sorrow shed
O'er our beloved, lamented dead,
We see reflected joy instead
    That gives a blest relief.

A father and a daughter gone
    Beyond our fireside -
For one we loved and leaned upon
The skillful archer Death had drawn
His bow; and one in lif...

I

THE GLADIOLAS.

As tall as the lily, as tall as the rose,
And almost as tall as the hollyhocks,
Ranked breast to breast in sentinel rows
Stand the gladiola stocks.

And some are red as the humming-bird's blood
And some are pied as the butterfly race,
And each is shaped like a velvet hood
Gold-lined with delicate lace.

For you know the goblins that come like musk
To tumble and romp in the flowers' laps,
When you see big fire-fly eyes in the dusk,
Hang there their goblin caps.


II

THE MORNING-GLORIES.

They bloom up the fresh, green trellis
In airy, vigorous ease,
And their fragrant, sensuous honey
Is best beloved of the bees.

Oh! the rose knows the dainty secret
How the morning-glory b...