Between two kinds of food, both equally
Remote and tempting, first a man might die
Of hunger, ere he one could freely choose.
E'en so would stand a lamb between the maw
Of two fierce wolves, in dread of both alike:
E'en so between two deer a dog would stand,
Wherefore, if I was silent, fault nor praise
I to myself impute, by equal doubts
Held in suspense, since of necessity
It happen'd. Silent was I, yet desire
Was painted in my looks; and thus I spake
My wish more earnestly than language could.

As Daniel, when the haughty king he freed
From ire, that spurr'd him on to deeds unjust
And violent; so look'd Beatrice then.

"Well I discern," she thus her words address'd,
"How contrary desires each way constrain thee,
So that thy anxious thought is ...

He found the road so long and lone
That he was fain to turn again.
The bird's faint note, the bee's low drone
Seemed to his heart to monotone
The unavailing and the vain,
And dirge the dreams that life had slain.
And for a while he sat him there
Beside the way, and bared his head:
He felt the hot sun on his hair;
And weed-warm odors everywhere
Waked memories, forgot or dead,
Of days when love this way had led
To that old house beside the road
With white board-fence and picket gate,
And garden plot that gleamed and glowed
With color, and that overflowed
With fragrance; where, both soon and late,
She 'mid the flowers used to wait.
Was it the same? or had it changed,
As he and she, with months and years?
How long now had they been estranged?

Thou canst not see him standing by -
Time - with a poppied hand
Stealing thy youth's simplicity,
Even as falls unceasingly
His waning sand.

He will pluck thy childish roses, as
Summer from her bush
Strips all the loveliness that was;
Even to the silence evening has
Thy laughter hush.

Thy locks too faint for earthly gold,
The meekness of thine eyes,
He will darken and dim, and to his fold
Drive, 'gainst the night, thy stainless, old
Innocencies;

Thy simple words confuse and mar,
Thy tenderest thoughts delude,
Draw a long cloud athwart thy star,
Still with loud timbrels heaven's far
Faint interlude.

Thou canst not see; I see, dearest;
O, then, yet patient be,
Though love refuse thy heart all rest,
Though...

[1]

A husband's death brings always sighs;
The widow sobs, sheds tears - then dries.
Of Time the sadness borrows wings;
And Time returning pleasure brings.
Between the widow of a year
And of a day, the difference
Is so immense,
That very few who see her
Would think the laughing dame
And weeping one the same.
The one puts on repulsive action,
The other shows a strong attraction.
The one gives up to sighs, or true or false;
The same sad note is heard, whoever calls.
Her grief is inconsolable,
They say. Not so our fable,
Or, rather, not so says the truth.

To other worlds a husband went
And left his wife in prime of youth.
Above his dying couch she bent,
And cried, 'My love, O wait for me!
My soul would gladly g...

    Ye young debaters over the doctrine
    Of the soul's immortality
    I who lie here was the village atheist,
    Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments
    Of the infidels. But through a long sickness
    Coughing myself to death I read the
    Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
    And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition
    And desire which the Shadow
    Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,
    Could not extinguish.
    Listen to me, ye who live in the senses
    And think through the senses only:
    Immortality is not a gift,
    Immortality is an achievement;
    And only those who strive mightily
    Shall possess it.

O thou, the wonder of all days!
O paragon, and pearl of praise!
O Virgin-martyr, ever blest
Above the rest
Of all the maiden-train!We come,
And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.

Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round
Thy harmless and unhaunted ground;
And as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffodil,
And other flowers, lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.

Thou wonder of all maids, liest here,
Of daughters all, the dearest dear;
The eye of virgins; nay, the queen
Of this smooth green,
And all sweet meads, from whence we get
The primrose and the violet.

Too soon, too dear did Jephthah buy,
By thy sad loss, our liberty;
His was the bond and cov'nant, yet
Thou paid'st the debt;
Lamented Maid!he won the day:

A changing medley of insistent sounds,
Like broken airs, played on a Samisen,
Pursues me, as the waves blot out the shore.
The trot of wooden heels; the warning cry
Of patient runners; laughter and strange words
Of children, children, children everywhere:
The clap of reverent hands, before some shrine;
And over all the haunting temple bells,
Waking, in silent chambers of the soul,
Dim memories of long-forgotten lives.

But oh! the sorrow of the undertone;
The wail of hopeless weeping in the dawn
From lips that smiled through gilded bars at night.

Brave little people, of large aims, you bow
Too often, and too low before the Past;
You sit too long in worship of the dead.
Yet have you risen, open eyed, to greet
The great material Present.    Now s...

. . . In a dark street she met and spoke to me,
Importuning, one wet and mild March night.
We walked and talked together. O her tale
Was very common; thousands know it all!
Seduced; a gentleman; a baby coming;
Parents that railed; London; the child born dead;
A seamstress then, one of some fifty girls
"Taken on" a few months at a dressmaker's
In the crush of the "season;" thirteen shillings a week!
The fashionable people's dresses done,
And they flown off, these fifty extra girls
Sent - to the streets: that is, to work that gives
Scarcely enough to buy the decent clothes
Respectable employers all demand
Or speak dismissal. Well, well, well, we know!
And she - "Why, I have gone on down and down,
And there's the gutter, look, that ...