To-night the west o'er-brims with warmest dyes;
Its chalice overflows
With pools of purple colouring the skies,
Aflood with gold and rose;
And some hot soul seems throbbing close to mine,
As sinks the sun within that world of wine.

I seem to hear a bar of music float
And swoon into the west;
My ear can scarcely catch the whispered note,
But something in my breast
Blends with that strain, till both accord in one,
As cloud and colour blend at set of sun.

And twilight comes with grey and restful eyes,
As ashes follow flame.
But O! I heard a voice from those rich skies
Call tenderly my name;
It was as if some priestly fingers stole
In benedictions o'er my lonely soul.

I know not why, but all my being longed
And leapt at that sweet ...

Tune - "Macgregor of Rura's Lament."


I.

    Raving winds around her blowing,
    Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing,
    By a river hoarsely roaring,
    Isabella stray'd deploring,
    "Farewell hours that late did measure
    Sunshine days of joy and pleasure;
    Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow,
    Cheerless night that knows no morrow!

II.

    "O'er the past too fondly wandering,
    On the hopeless future pondering;
    Chilly grief my life-blood freezes,
    Fell despair my fancy seizes.
    Life, thou soul of every blessing,
    Load to misery most distressing,
    Gladly how would I resign thee,
    And to dark oblivion join thee!"

A shadowed form before the light,
A gleaming face against the night,
Clutched hands across a halo bright
Of blowing hair, - her fixed sight
Stares down where moving black, below,
The river's deathly waves in murmurous silence flow.

The moon falls fainting on the sky,
The dark woods bow their heads in sorrow,
The earth sends up a misty sigh:
A soul defies the morrow!

One widow at a grave will sob
A little while, and weep, and sigh!
If two should meet on such a job,
They'll have a gossip by and by.
If three should come together - why,
Three widows are good company!
If four should meet by any chance,
Four is a number very nice,
To have a rubber in a trice -
But five will up and have a dance!

Poor Mrs. C -    -    (why should I not
Declare her name? - her name was Cross)
Was one of those the "common lot"
Had left to weep "no common loss";
For she had lately buried then
A man, the "very best of men,"
A lingering truth, discovered first
Whenever men "are at the worst."

To take the measure of her woe,
It was some dozen inches deep -
I mean in crape, and hung so low,
It hid the drops she did <...

So warmly we met and so fondly we parted,
    That which was the sweeter even I could not tell,--
That first look of welcome her sunny eyes darted,
    Or that tear of passion, which blest our farewell.
To meet was a heaven and to part thus another,--
    Our joy and our sorrow seemed rivals in bliss;
Oh! Cupid's two eyes are not liker each other
    In smiles and in tears than that moment to this.

The first was like day-break, new, sudden, delicious,--
    The dawn of a pleasure scarce kindled up yet;
The last like the farewell of daylight, more precious,
    More glowing and deep, as 'tis nearer its set.
Our meeting, tho' happy, was tinged by a sorrow
    To think that such happiness could not remain;
While our parting, tho' sad, gave a hope that to-morrow
...

Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers.

You call yourself a man,
For all you used to swear,
An' Leave me, as you can,
My certain shame to bear?
I'ear! You do not care,
You done the worst you know.
I 'ate you, grinnin' there....
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!

Nice while it lasted, an' now it is over,
Tear out your 'eart an' good-bye to you lover!
What's the use o' grievin', when the mother that bore you
(Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you?

It aren't no false alarm,
The finish to your fun;
You, you 'ave brung the 'arm,
An' I'm the ruined one!
An' now you'll off an' run
With some new fool in tow.
Your 'eart? You 'aven't none...
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!

When a man is tired there is naught will bind 'im
All 'e solemn promised 'e will shove be'ind 'im.
What...

I saw her crop a rose
Right early in the day,
And I went to kiss the place
Where she broke the rose away
And I saw the patten rings
Where she oer the stile had gone,
And I love all other things
Her bright eyes look upon.
If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,
The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer things to me.

I have a pleasant hill
Which I sit upon for hours,
Where she cropt some sprigs of thyme
And other little flowers;
And she muttered as she did it
As does beauty in a dream,
And I loved her when she hid it
On her breast, so like to cream,
Near the brown mole on her neck that to me a diamond shone
Then my eye was like to fire, and my heart was like to stone.

There is a small green place
Where cowsl...

She stood in the open door,
She blessed them faint and low:
"I must go," she said, "must go
Away from the light of the sun,
Away from you, every one;
Must see your eyes no more,--
Your eyes, that love me so.

"I should not shudder thus,
Nor weep, nor be afraid.
Nor cling to you so dismayed,
Could I only pierce with ray eyes
Where the dark, dark shadow lies;
Where something hideous
Is hiding, perhaps," she said.

Then slowly she went from them,
Went down the staircase grim,
With trembling heart and limb;
Her footfalls echoed
In the silence vast and dead,
Like the notes of a requiem,
Not sung, but uttered.

For a little way and a black
She groped as grope the blind,
Then a sudden radiance shined,
And a visio...

I.

The rainy smell of a ferny dell,
Whose shadow no sunray flaws,
When Autumn sits in the wayside weeds
Telling her beads
Of haws.


II.

The phantom mist, that is moonbeam-kissed,
On hills where the trees are thinned,
When Autumn leans at the oak-root's scarp,
Playing a harp
Of wind.


III.

The crickets' chirr 'neath brier and burr,
By leaf-strewn pools and streams,
When Autumn stands 'mid the dropping nuts,
With the book, she shuts,
Of dreams.


IV.

The gray "alas" of the days that pass,
And the hope that says "adieu,"
A parting sorrow, a shriveled flower,
And one ghost's hour
With you.

So grieves th' adventurous merchant, when he throws
All the long toil'd-for treasure his ship stows
Into the angry main, to save from wrack
Himself and men, as I grieve to give back
These letters: yet so powerful is your sway
As if you bid me die, I must obey.
Go then, blest papers, you shall kiss those hands
That gave you freedom, but hold me in bands;
Which with a touch did give you life, but I,
Because I may not touch those hands, must die.
Methinks, as if they knew they should be sent
Home to their native soil from banishment;
I see them smile, like dying saints that know
They are to leave the earth and toward heaven go.
When you return, pray tell your sovereign
And mine, I gave you courteous entertain;
Each line received a tear, and then a kiss;
Firs...

I

I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile amid the tombs around:
"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are ye distrest,
Now, screened from life's unrest?"

II

- "O not at being here;
But that our future second death is drear;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!

III

"Those who our grandsires be
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry
With keenest backward eye.

IV

"They bide as quite forgot;
They are as men who have existed not;
Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
It is the second death.

V

"We here, as yet, each day
Are blest with dear recall; as yet, alway
In some soul hold a love...

I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.

Who set their heart upon a hope
That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,
The sun's wan looking-glass.

Who set their will upon a whim
Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or miss their will.

All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.

A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.

A second like a sunlit spark
Flashed singing up his track;

Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
We stood together in an open field;
Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at ease and courting full in view.
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then, as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,
I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.

How was this I did not see
Such a look as here was shown
Ere its womanhood had blown
Past its first felicity? -
That I did not know you young,
Faded Face,
Know you young!

Why did Time so ill bestead
That I heard no voice of yours
Hail from out the curved contours
Of those lips when rosy red;
Weeted not the songs they sung,
Faded Face,
Songs they sung!

By these blanchings, blooms of old,
And the relics of your voice -
Leavings rare of rich and choice
From your early tone and mould -
Let me mourn, - aye, sorrow-wrung,
Faded Face,
Sorrow-wrung!

Good-bye, Pierrette. The new moon waits
Like some shy maiden at the gates
Of rose and pearl, to watch us stand
This little moment, hand in hand--
Nor one red rose its watch abates.

The low wind through your garden prates
Of one this twilight desolates.
Ah, was it this your roses planned?
Good-bye, Pierrette.

Oh, merriest of little mates,
No sadder lover hesitates
Beneath this moon in any land;
Nor any roses, watchful, bland,
Look on a sadder jest of Fate's.
Good-bye, Pierrette.

The colours of the setting sun
Withdrew across the Western land,
He raised the sliprails, one by one,
And shot them home with trembling hand;
Her brown hands clung, her face grew pale,
Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim!,
One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,
And, `Good-bye, Mary!' `Good-bye, Jim!'
Oh, he rides hard to race the pain
Who rides from love, who rides from home;
But he rides slowly home again,
Whose heart has learnt to love and roam.

A hand upon the horse's mane,
And one foot in the stirrup set,
And, stooping back to kiss again,
With `Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret!
When I come back', he laughed for her,
`We do not know how soon 'twill be;
I'll whistle as I round the spur,
You let the sliprails down for me.'

She...

From deepest depth, O Lord, I cry to Thee.
"My Love runs quick to your necessity."

I am bereft; my soul is sick with loss.
"Dear one, I know.    My heart broke on the Cross."

What most I loved is gone.    I walk alone.
"My Love shall more than fill his place, my own."

The burden is too great for me to bear.
"Not when I'm here to take an equal share."

The road is long, and very wearisome.
"Just on in front I see the light of home."

The night is black; I fear to go astray.
"Hold My hand fast.    I'll lead you all the way."

My eyes are dim, with weeping all the night.
"With one soft kiss I will restore your sight."

And Thou wilt do all this for me?--for me?
"For this I came--...