Charm me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers;
That being ravish'd, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Ease my sick head,
And make my bed,
Thou Power that canst sever
From me this ill;
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire,
Into a gentle-licking flame,
And make it thus expire.
Then make me weep
My pains asleep,
And give me such reposes,
That I, poor I,
May think, thereby,
I live and die
'Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers,
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o'er the flowers.
Melt, melt my pains
With thy soft strains;
That having ease me given,
With full de...

With beams December planets dart
His cold eye truth and conduct scanned,
July was in his sunny heart,
October in his liberal hand.

Friend of my soul, this goblet sip,
    'Twill chase that pensive tear;
'Tis not so sweet as woman's lip,
    But, oh! 'tis more sincere.

    Like her delusive beam,
        'Twill steal away thy mind:
    But, truer than love's dream,
        It leaves no sting behind.

Come, twine the wreath, thy brows to shade;
    These flowers were culled at noon;--
Like woman's love the rose will fade,
    But, ah! not half so soon.
        For though the flower's decayed,
            Its fragrance is not o'er;
        But once when love's betrayed,
            Its sweet life blooms no more.

How oft have I seen her upon the sea-shore,
While tearful, her face, she would hide,
In sad silence the loss of the Sailor deplore
Who from infancy call'd her his bride,

The Sailor she lov'd was a Fisherman's son,
All dangers he triumph'd to meet;
Well repaid, if a smile from his Mary he won,
As he proffer'd his spoils at her feet.

But soon from her smiles was he summon'd away,
His fortunes at sea to pursue:
And grav'd on their hearts was the sorrowful day
That witness'd their final adieu.

They spoke not, ah, no; for they felt their hearts speak
A language their tongues could not tell;
As he kiss'd off the tears that fell fast on her cheek,
As she sigh'd on his bosom, farewel.

Full oft, the sad season of absence to charm,
To the ro...

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the hours of eve went by.

Who knows what round the corner waits
To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur
Shall leave me with a head to lift,
Worthy of him that spoke with her.

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the days of life went by.

Live ill or well, this thing is mine,
From all I guard it, ill or well.
One tawdry, tattered, faded flower
To show the jealous kings in hell.

My heart forgot its God for love of you,
    And you forgot me, other loves to learn;
Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue
    Back to my God I turn.

And just because my God forgets the past,
    And in forgetting does not ask to know
Why I once left His arms for yours, at last
    Back to my God I go.

I.

Death's Eloquence.


When I shall go
Into the narrow home that leaves
No room for wringing of the hands and hair,
And feel the pressing of the walls which bear
The heavy sod upon my heart that grieves,
(As the weird earth rolls on),
Then I shall know
What is the power of destiny. But still,
Still while my life, however sad, be mine,
I war with memory, striving to divine
Phantom to-morrows, to outrun the past;
For yet the tears of final, absolute ill
And ruinous knowledge of my fate I shun.
Even as the frail, instinctive weed
Tries, through unending shade, to reach at last
A shining, mellowing, rapture-giving sun;
So in the deed of breathing joy's warm breath,
Fain to succeed,
I, too, in colorless longings, hope til...

(See Note 79)

    I
DEDICATION

You never came here; but I go
Here often and am met by you.
Each room and road here must renew
The thought of you and your form show
Standing with helpful hand extended,
As when long since in trust and deed
My home you from my foes defended.

    ...

So often, while I wrote this book,
The light shone from your genial eye;
Then we were one, both you and I
And what in silence being took;
So here and there the book possesses
Your spirit and your heart's fresh faith,
And therefore now your name it blesses.

I love the air, when growing colder
    It, clear and high,
    The purer sky
Broadens with sense of freedom bolder.

I find in forests joy the keenest
    In aut...

Sweete secrecie, what tongue can tell thy worth?
What mortall pen sufficiently can prayse thee?
What curious Pensill serues to lim thee forth?
What Muse hath power aboue thy height to raise thee?
Strong locke of kindnesse, Closet of loues store,
Harts Methridate, the soules preseruatiue;
O vertue! which all vertues doe adore,
Cheefe good, from whom all good things wee deriue.
O rare effect! true bond of friendships measure,
Conceite of Angels, which all wisdom teachest;
O, richest Casket of all heauenly treasure,
In secret silence which such wonders preachest.
    O purest mirror! wherein men may see
    The liuely Image of Diuinitie.

I.

In girandoles of gladioles
The day had kindled flame;
And Heaven a door of gold and pearl
Unclosed when Morning, like a girl,
A red rose twisted in a curl,
Down sapphire stairways came.

Said I to Love:"What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?"
Said I to Love:"What must I do?
All on a summer's morning."
Said Love to me:"Go woo, go woo."
Said Love to me:"Go woo.

If she be milking, follow, O!
And in the clover hollow, O!
While through the dew the bells clang clear,
Just whisper it into her ear,
All on a summer's morning."

II.

Of honey and heat and weed and wheat
The day had made perfume;
And Heaven a tower of turquoise raised,
Whence Noon, like some wan woman, gazed
A sunflower withering a...

Through many a fragrant cedar grove
A darkened water moans;
And there pale Memory stood with Love
Amongst the moss-green stones.

The shimmering sunlight fell and kissed
The grasstree’s golden sheaves;
But we were troubled with a mist
Of music in the leaves.

One passed us, like a sudden gleam;
Her face was deadly fair.
“Oh, go,” we said, “you homeless Dream
Of Ella’s shining hair!

“We halt, like one with tired wings,
And we would fain forget
That there are tempting, maddening things
Too high to clutch at yet!

“Though seven Springs have filled the Wood
With pleasant hints and signs,
Since faltering feet went forth and stood
With Death amongst the pines.”

From point to point unwittingly
We wish to clamber sti...

Beneath the shelter of the bush,
In undisturbed repose
Unruffled by the kiss of breeze
There lurks a smiling rose;
Beneath thine outer beauty, gleams,
In holy light enshrined,
A symbol of the blooming flower,
A pure, unspotted mind.

The lovely tint that crowns the hill
When westward sinks the sun,
The milder dazzle in the stream
That evening sits upon,
The morning blushes, mantling o’er
The face of land and sea,
They all recall to mind the charms
That are combined in thee!

I thought, before my sunlit twentieth year,
That I knew Love, and Death that goes with it;
And my young broken heart in little songs,
Dew-like, I poured, and waited for my end
Wildly - and waited - being then nineteen.
I walked a little longer on my way,
Alive, 'gainst expectation and desire,
And, being then past twenty, I beheld
The face of all the faces of the world
Dewily opening on its stem for me.
Ah! so it seemed, and, each succeeding year,
Thus hath some woman blossom of the divine
Flowered in my path, and made a frail delay
In my true journey - to my home in thee.

October 27, 1911.

They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland’s sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all,
The promise of the waterfall.

Some vague, faint rumor to the vale
Had crept, perchance a hunter’s tale,
Of its wild mirth of waters lost
On the dark woods through which it tossed.

Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere
Whirled in mad dance its misty hair;
But who had raised its veil, or seen
The rainbow skirts of that Undine?

They sought it where the mountain brook
Its swift way to the valley took;
Along the rugged slope they clomb,
Their guide a thread of sound and foam.

Height after height they slowly won;
The fiery javelins of the sun
Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade
With rock and vine their steps delay...

The way her silky garments undulate
It seems she's dancing as she walks along,
Like serpents that the sacred charmers make
To move in rhythms of their waving wands.

Like desert sands and skies she is as well,
As unconcerned with human misery,
Like the long networks of the ocean's swells
Unfolding with insensibility.

Her polished eyes are made of charming stones,
And in her essence, where the natures mix
Of holy angel and the ancient sphinx,

Where all is lit with gold, steel, diamonds,
A useless star, it shines eternally,
The sterile woman's frigid majesty.

Two dreams came down to earth one night
From the realm of mist and dew;
One was a dream of the old, old days,
And one was a dream of the new.

One was a dream of a shady lane
That led to the pickerel pond
Where the willows and rushes bowed themselves
To the brown old hills beyond.

And the people that peopled the old-time dream
Were pleasant and fair to see,
And the dreamer he walked with them again
As often of old walked he.

Oh, cool was the wind in the shady lane
That tangled his curly hair!
Oh, sweet was the music the robins made
To the springtime everywhere!

Was it the dew the dream had brought
From yonder midnight skies,
Or was it tears from the dear, dead years
That lay in the dreamer's eyes?

The other