Now, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold,
    And ransack heaven before our moment fails.
Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,
    We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.

It is not time that makes eternity.
    Love and an hour may quite out-run the years,
And give us more to hear and more to see
    Than life can wash away with all its tears.

Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky
    Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this;
But we shall ride the lightning ere we die
    And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,

With time to spare for all that heaven can tell,
While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.

Who knows what days I answer for to-day:
    Giving the bud I give the flower.    I bow
    This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.

Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
    Give one repose to pain I know not now,
    One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.

Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
    I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils?    In their retreat
    I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
    And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.

        If all the year was summer time,
    And all the aim of life
        Was just to lilt on like a rhyme,
    Then I would be your wife.

        If all the days were August days,
    And crowned with golden weather,
        How happy then through green-clad ways
    We two could stray together!

        If all the nights were moonlit nights,
    And we had naught to do
        But just to sit and plan delights,
    Then I would wed with you.

        If life was all a summer fete,
    Its soberest pace the "glide,"
        Then I would choose you for my mate,
    And keep you at my side.

        But winter makes full half the year,
    And labor half of life,
        And all the laughter and good cheer
    Give place t...

MORTAL

The world is full of selfishness and greed.
Lord, I would lave its sin.

SPIRIT

Yea, mortal, earth of thy good help has need.
Go cleanse THYSELF within.

MORTAL

Mine ear is hurt by harsh and evil speech.
I would reform men's ways.

SPIRIT

There is but one convincing way to teach.
Speak THOU but words of praise.

MORTAL

On every hand is wretchedness and grief,
Despondency and fear.
Lord, I would give my fellow men relief.

SPIRIT

Be, then, all hope, all cheer.

MORTAL

Lord, I look outward and grow sick at heart,
Such need of change I see.

SPIRIT

Mortal, look IN.    Do thy allotted part,
And leave the rest to ME.

Spring went about the woods to-day,
The soft-foot winter-thief,
And found where idle sorrow lay
'Twixt flower and faded leaf.
She looked on him, and found him fair
For all she had been told;
She knelt adown beside him there,
And sang of days of old.

His open eyes beheld her nought,
Yet 'gan his lips to move;
But life and deeds were in her thought,
And he would sing of love.

So sang they till their eyes did meet,
And faded fear and shame;
More bold he grew, and she more sweet,
Until they sang the same.

Until, say they who know the thing,
Their very lips did kiss,
And Sorrow laid abed with Spring
Begat an earthly bliss.

Oh, 'tis a touching thing, to make one weep, -
A tender infant with its curtain'd eye,
Breathing as it would neither live nor die
With that unchanging countenance of sleep!
As if its silent dream, serene and deep,
Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky
So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie
With no more life than roses - just to keep
The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath.
O blossom boy! so calm is thy repose.
So sweet a compromise of life and death,
'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose
For memory to stain their inward leaf,
Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief.

[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...

[1]


Buds of roses, virgin flowers,
Culled from Cupid's balmy bowers,
In the bowl of Bacchus steep,
Till with crimson drops they weep.
Twine the rose, the garland twine,
Every leaf distilling wine;
Drink and smile, and learn to think
That we were born to smile and drink.
Rose, thou art the sweetest flower
That ever drank the amber shower;
Rose, thou art the fondest child
Of dimpled Spring, the wood-nymph wild.
Even the Gods, who walk the sky,
Are amorous of thy scented sigh.
Cupid, too, in Paphian shades,
His hair with rosy fillets braids,
When with the blushing sister Graces,
The wanton winding dance he traces.
Then bring me, showers of roses bring,
And shed them o'er me while I sing.
Or while, great Bacchus, rou...

    I would I were a child,
That I might look, and laugh, and say, My Father!
And follow Thee with running feet, or rather
    Be led thus through the wild.

    How I would hold thy hand!
My glad eyes often to thy glory lifting,
Which casts all beauteous shadows, ever shifting,
    Over this sea and land.

    If a dark thing came near,
I would but creep within thy mantle's folding,
Shut my eyes close, thy hand yet faster holding,
    And so forget my fear.

    O soul, O soul, rejoice!
Thou art God's child indeed, for all thy sinning;
A trembling child, yet his, and worth the winning
    With gentle eyes and voice.

    The words like echoes flow.
They are too good; mine I can call them never;
Such water drinking once, I should ...

Summah night an' sighin' breeze,
'Long de lovah's lane;
Frien'ly, shadder-mekin' trees,
'Long de lovah's lane.
White folks' wo'k all done up gran'--
Me an' 'Mandy han'-in-han'
Struttin' lak we owned de lan',
'Long de lovah's lane.

Owl a-settin' 'side de road,
'Long de lovah's lane,
Lookin' at us lak he knowed
Dis uz lovah's lane.
Go on, hoot yo' mou'nful tune,
You ain' nevah loved in June,
An' come hidin' f'om de moon
Down in lovah's lane.

Bush it ben' an' nod an' sway,
Down in lovah's lane,
Try'n' to hyeah me whut I say
'Long de lovah's lane.
But I whispahs low lak dis,
An' my 'Mandy smile huh bliss--
Mistah Bush he shek his fis',
Down in lovah's lane.

Whut I keer ef day is long,
Down in lovah's l...

Alice, I need not tell you that the Art
That copies Nature, even at its best,
Is but the echo of a splendid tone,
Or like the answer of a little child
To the deep question of some frosted sage.
For Nature in her grand magnificence,
Compared to Art, must ever raise her head
Beyond the cognizance of human minds:
This is the spirit merely; that, the soul.
We watch her passing, like some gentle dream,
And catch sweet glimpses of her perfect face;
We see the flashing of her gorgeous robes,
And, if her mantle ever falls at all,
How few Elishas wear it sacredly,
As if it were a valued gift from heaven.
God has created; we but re-create,
According to the temper of our minds;
According to the grace He has bequeathed;
According to the uses we have made
Of...

Thou say'st thou lov'st me, Sappho; I say no;
But would to Love I could believe 'twas so!
Pardon my fears, sweet Sappho; I desire
That thou be righteous found, and I the liar.

My restless blood now lies a-quiver,
Knowing that always, exquisitely,
This April twilight on the river
Stirs anguish in the heart of me.

For the fast world in that rare glimmer
Puts on the witchery of a dream,
The straight grey buildings, richly dimmer,
The fiery windows, and the stream

With willows leaning quietly over,
The still ecstatic fading skies . . .
And all these, like a waiting lover,
Murmur and gleam, lift lustrous eyes,

Drift close to me, and sideways bending
Whisper delicious words.
But I
Stretch terrible hands, uncomprehending,
Shaken with love; and laugh; and cry.

My agony made the willows quiver;
I heard the knocking of my heart
Die loudly down the windless river,
I heard the pale skies fall apart,

Along the fields as we came by
A year ago, my love and I,
The aspen over stile and stone
Was talking to itself alone.
"Oh who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass;
Two lovers looking to be wed;
And time shall put them both to bed,
But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love."

And sure enough beneath the tree
There walks another love with me,
And overhead the aspen heaves
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;
And I spell nothing in their stir,
But now perhaps they speak to her,
And plain for her to understand
They talk about a time at hand
When I shall sleep with clover clad,
And she beside another lad.

Ge me thi hand, mi trusty friend,
Mi own is all aw ha to gie thi;
Let friendship simmer on to th' end; -
God bless thi! I an gooid luck be wi' thi!

Aw prize thee just for what tha art; -
Net for thi brass, thi clooas, or station;
But just becoss aw know thi heart,
Finds honest worth an habitation.

Ther's monny a suit ov glossy black,
Worn bi a chap 'at's nowt to back it:
Wol monny a true, kind heart may rack,
Lapt in a tattered fushten jacket.

Ther's monny a smilin simperin knave,
Wi' oppen hand will wish 'gooid morrow,'
'At wodn't gie a meg to save
A luckless mate, or ease his sorrow.

Praichers an taichers seem to swarm,
But sad to tell, - th' plain honest fact is,
They'd rayther bid yo shun all harm,
Nor put ther taichi...

She stood among the longest ferns
The valley held; and in her hand
One blossom, like the light that burns
Vermilion o'er a sunset land;
And round her hair a twisted band
Of pink-pierced mountain-laurel blooms:
And darker than dark pools, that stand
Below the star-communing glooms,
Her eyes beneath her hair's perfumes.

I saw the moonbeam sandals on
Her flowerlike feet, that seemed too chaste
To tread true gold: and, like the dawn
On splendid peaks that lord a waste
Of solitude lost gods have graced,
Her face: she stood there, faultless-hipped,
Bound as with cestused silver, chased
With acorn-cup and crown, and tipped
With oak leaves, whence her chiton slipped.

Limbs that the gods call loveliness!
The grace and glory of all Greece

In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen,

When, in the shadow of the ash
That dreams its dream in Attitash,
In the warm summer weather,
Two maidens sat together.

They sat and watched in idle mood
The gleam and shade of lake and wood;
The beach the keen light smote,
The white sail of a boat;

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,
In sweetness, not in music, dying;
Hardback, and virgin's-bower,
And white-spiked clethra-flower.

With careless ears they heard the plash
And breezy wash of Attitash,
The wood-bird's plaintive cry,
The locust's sharp reply.

And teased the while, with playful band,
The shaggy dog of Newfoundland,

Fly hence, pale care, no more remember
Past sorrows with the fled December,
But let each pleasant cheek appear
Smooth as the childhood of the year,
    And sing a carol here.
'Twas brave, 'twas brave, could we command the hand
Of youth's swift watch to stand
As you have done your day;
Then should we not decay.
But all we wither, and our light
Is spilt in everlasting night,
Whenas your sight
Shows like the heavens above the moon,
Like an eternal noon
That sees no setting sun.

Keep up those flames, and though you shroud
Awhile your forehead in a cloud,
Do it like the sun to write
In the air a greater text of light;
Welcome to all our vows,
And since you pay
To us this day
So long desir'd,
See we have fir'd
Our holy s...