Love's memorial :: :: University of Virginia Library

[These songs, vain strays of idle hours]

These songs, vain strays of idle hours,
Were born not under sun or showers,
But where your feet had passed they grew,
Or sour or sweet, or weeds or flowers.

Your voice to them as May-winds blew,
Your footsteps gave them rain and dew,
Your face was light to them; their skies
Beneath your lids were gold and blue.

Take from my hand what in me lies
To give; when Autumn winds arise,
Small harm to these will tempests do,
So they find favour in your eyes.

A LANE IN FEBRUARY.

I wandered up this way last year;
Unchanged, unmoved, it may not be
Unlike what then it seemed to me;
The same dull ivied trees, and here
The same black hedges that gird in
Downs barren as the breasts of sin,
The same still wearied atmosphere.

And then as now I slowly passed
Along the steep divided slope,
With aching heart and without hope,
Scarce caring in what shape the last
Blow fell upon my beaten brow,
With eyes foreseeing then as now
The future blacker than the past.

What has the year left with me? One
Sad love destroyed through time and scorn;
A summer of delight forlorn;
Memories of sorrows that are gone
With grey and desolated hours;
And this dry handful of spoilt flowers
That died as I laid hand thereon.

EASTER SONG.

Poor Muse, to thee what may these sunbeams say?
Old ere thy time, decrepit in thy youth,
Accept in peace the inevitable truth,
Be joined again unto the unquickening clay.

Thy voice is lost, poor songstress of a day!

There was a time when every passing grief
Held out to thee its presage of delight:
Now dulled and wearied, through unending night
Thy soul sinks downward, hopeless of relief.

O passionless despair beyond belief!

The flowers leap forth to mock thine aching soul:
The dancing sun laughs at thy dreary pain:
Drive toward thy tomb with an untightened rein,
On limping steeds attain thy utmost goal!

At the grave's mouth death takes thy heart for toll.

A LITTLE WHILE.

Nay! Is it much to thee that year by year
The Spring returns, when her soft languid days
Give presage of July's sun-dazzling blaze,
Most sure to come, lest we should doubt and fear?

Thus kissing now your long throat, white and clear,
I asked: but you who watched the sun's last rays
Burn there behind the fir-trees, would not praise
The thing I love in words I longed to hear.

Wait! When we hear the robin piping shrill
Through the dank season, o'er the misty hill,
Then shall we shudder at that sad song he sings!

Wait! When death comes upon his bat-like wings,
How we shall yearn to know of flowers that fill,
Laid low among foul worms and creeping things!

BARCAROLLE.

Without a parting word
Love, like a wild sea-bird,
Flies outward mocking me
Across the sea.

O wanderer without home,
Thy wing-tips skim the foam,
Then swiftly rising try
The cloudless sky.

I watch thy flight afar,
Now like a falling star
That seeks a watery grave
Below the wave;

Now like a boat thy breast
Lies on the waves at rest,
Mounting on them to glide
Down the other side.

Alone of all things free,
Thou car'st not where thou flee
So that thy course may be
Far, far from me!

DEUX PIÈCES DE TRISTESSE.

[I.]

The cool stream flows,
Concealed from sight,
To tell the rose
Of new delight
New-born with day....

O voice of May!

The woods, scarce stirred
By any breeze,
Hear the sweet bird
Hid in their trees
That flash and shine....

O song divine!

The sunlight showers
Gold-pointed rays
On apple-flowers
And lily-sprays
Refreshed with rain....

In vain, in vain!

II.

I hear the waves
Sweep toward deep caves
Remote from air;
The far mews fly;
The wind's low sigh
Dies in my hair.

On either hand,
Past straits of sand,
I watch afraid
The bent sky's dome
And lines of foam
That gleam and fade.

The throbbing sea
Brings not to me
Delight thereof;
Wind, flower and bird
Give me one word....
She will not love.

SANS AMOUR.

I do not doubt that I
Am worthy of all your scorn;
But yet, I know not why,
I find it hard to be borne.

You will not love me, my dear;
The world would be well enough,
Spite of our sorrows and fear,
Was there a little love.

THE CAGED THRUSH.

The deep woods call me to their solitudes,
The green deep rustling murmuring wavering woods,
To their wild paths of fern and springing moss,
Where winds a streamlet wanderingly across,
And answers chafing elm-trees as it goes:
Where she, who should have been my mistress, knows
Not of my prison, and caring nought thereof
Sings near her nest watched by another love;
And my breast, when I see my brothers flee
To fly or sing, strains outwards piteously,
And my voice, rising as my sorrows strain,
Recalls them who forsake me in my pain,
Recalls them to my side; but never bird
Comes nigh to me, and never chirping word
Tells me how now the streamlet gleams and flows,
Or tree-tops murmur when the west wind blows
Through wild-wood alleys lined with moss and fern:
But my heart still alone must ache and burn
For all the murmurs of the wavering woods,
And my love wandering in their solitudes.

SPRING.

Between the trees and trickling waterfall;
Between the trees where throstles sit and call,
Responding to the streamlet's undertone,
As, rainbow-hued, from stone to mossy stone
It slides, with tinkling drops of silver sound;
Between the skies and still unfooted ground
Where poppies and the flashing marigold
Blaze gold and red, and drooping ferns enfold
Cool caverns that the sea-nymphs know when they
Rise from the breakers of the circling bay;
Spring, shyly laughing in delighted shame,
Before the noonday sun's exultant flame
Fain to devour her flesh with kisses, hides
The yielding beauty of her naked sides
And white breasts starred with rosebuds, shines and cowers,
Beneath massed boughs of scented apple-flowers.

Also, from one spread branch, with drooping head,
Clenched hands and swollen face, one hangs there dead.

Foul type of man! Could'st thou not wait thy time?
Or did remorse for some dread secret crime
Rend up thy heart? Or anguish of desire
For an escaping dream? The burning fire
Of love, that turns our dayshine into night,
For woman made not for thy soul's delight?

What matters it? For thee all things are done:
Spring trembles here with love; the amorous sun
Has grasped her hair, and kissing blinds her eyes;
And from his glad embrace she will not rise
Until red evening float above the sea.

Thou dost not know, fly-gatherer! And for me,
One wish is mine, as thus I pass thee by;
Would that I were as thou and thou as I!

[_]

(After Fan Van Beers.)

A PARTING IN MAY.

Since Love is only born
That he may die,
And with the ripening corn
The swallows fly,

Since April for an hour
Lives with the rose,
Since every leaf and flower
Fades ere the snows,

Since nothing stays, nor Spring
Nor Summer red,
Since Joy dips on the wing
And then is fled,

Thou too, my love, take flight
If so thou will,
Like the faint sunset's light
Above the hill

That bears into the dark
Our dim regret,
Lest with dawn's earliest lark
We should forget.

Swift! Pause not now! Beware
If I should yield;
The sea-line is more fair
Than any field.

And where thou goest I may
Not follow thee,
Where the gold rose of day
Dawns on the sea,

Where sweeter scents are shed,
Where love is lore,
Where the frail poppies red
Flame to the shore.

For you the southern wave,
The shores of Greece;
For me—in one low grave
My tears may cease!

Since Love is only born
That he may die,
O love, my love, at morn
Take wing and fly!

BIRD OR WOMAN?

If on his death-bed Love
For all his pains may earn
Reward, O sister of
The swallows that return,

Bid them, when with next May
They chase the escaping gloom,
Each morning dip and play
Above his flowerless tomb.

THEN AND NOW.

We rowed on the sea one morning,
You only, my dear and I;
Was it meant as a blessing or warning,
That seamew's bitter cry?

Between us no word was spoken,
We were so happy then;
And now that my heart is broken,
It will not be mended again.

UTTERLY DEAD.

When vanished dream and impotent desire
Sink to the grave and gladly die with me,
Your name burnt deep upon my heart will be
The name my parched and fading lips respire.

But though one name may pass my lips, the choir
Of loves and hopes that now afar I see
Some like the dead and some like foes that flee,
No man shall know though once they sprang like fire.

Not even the worms: though their blind mouths devour
The flesh once fair in sunlight as a flower,
They will not know the vanquished thoughts that die;

But when I feel them on my mouldering head
Then may I laugh, knowing of my dreams, how dead
They are, how dead and rotten even as I.

REGRET.

Oh fair the green waves in the bay
Roll whitening on the shore!
For me, for me I can but say,
Nevermore.

I loved thee once in days long past,
Atthis; my chance I missed;
Alone I stand and murmur fast
Had I wist.

I loved thee once; beside the sea
Love told not what he bore;
Now wind and echo call to me
Nevermore!

AFTER DEATH.

Though desert sands or ruined stones
Lie heavy upon my buried head,
Though worms within my skull are fed
Or jackals on my putrid bones,

Though the sea ever-chafing moans
Above my limbs long-washed and dead,
Doubt not my spirit will be led
By thy sweet voice's tender tones.

Fear not, if, when you vainly weep
At midnight for reluctant sleep,
You feel an unseen presence bow

Toward you, and through the shuddering air
Press down cold hands amid your hair
And chilly kisses on your brow.

THE RACE.

In youth's first spring-tide when the awakening rose
Unfolds her bosom to the mounting sun,
We dream that we have but our course to run
Well-hewn and straight, to rise beyond the snows.

Alas! how soon the cliffs and rocks disclose,
Impassable, their trackless summits dun,
Howe'er we strive, at length appalled, undone,
We fall amid the desert of our woes.

We sang to beauty; and knowing nought thereof
We sang the embraces of imagined love,
Poor fools, whose lips have found no lips to kiss!

Hope, like a plover, led us far astray:
Night falls: we wander on an unknown way,
Where panthers glide and secret serpents hiss.

BALLATA.

In Exile to his Lady.

Since thou alone art free,
Ballad, I bid thee go
Where I no more shall come,
Thou knowest, where oversea
The mountain pine-trees blow,
And my heart hath its home.

Yea, past the washing of the windy sea,
Far inland, where upon a mountain's crest
Her castle shines, take thou my words for me;
Say how my soul with misery is oppressed
For loss of land, and love long time confessed
To her who holds my heart
Within her white sweet hands,
And heeds not if it dies
Or lives, who saw me part
To these waste northern lands
With unreluctant eyes.

Song, born of hopeless love and violent pain
Tell her of what despair thou art the child,
That she may take thee in her arms and strain
Thee to her full, fair bosom undefiled;
And how beyond the shores and wet winds wild
Thy master sees but strange
Wide hills, not where of old
The rose petals were red
And bade the summer change
The white leaf with the gold,
And flowers of lovelier head.

Or if her scorn flame on thee, then lie down
Before her feet, and, kissing them, fall dead;
And in the sea I too will seek to drown
My grief, so haply when all life is fled
The tides may drive my beaten limbs and head
To my sweet fatherland,
And the sea-birds may call
Above me where I lie,
Along the shining sand,
Washed up, and over all
The sweet blue southern sky.

And she, perchance, upon some festive day
May ride by me with laughter, and awhile
Look down on me, still laughing, and will say:
“What thing is this, wave-battered, torn and vile?”
Then pass, gold-glittering, onward with a smile.
Till the returning tide
Bear me again from earth
To grind my fleshless bones
Among the caverns wide
Where the sea-maids make mirth,
And in dim weeds and stones.

THE ROAD TO DEATH.

“O well for you when I am dead,
With loosened hanging hair to pass
Unto the bubbling clear well-head,

And sinking softly to the grass
Lay hands behind your neck and sigh
A little sobbing breath Alas,

How sweet it is to live, and lie,
Face upwards, on your back, to see
The hollowed turquoise of the sky,

And from the bent-grass hills, that be
Blown up by breezes from the sand,
Hear coloured secrets of the sea,

Of lovers parting on the strand
That now are bones, and bodies strange
Washed up at full tide to the land:

And watch the swallows sweet that range,
And sing perchance some little song
Dropt down the ages without change,

Such as I sang you, doing wrong
Unto the turn of broken rhyme,
What time alone we rode along

On hawking;” then a stone this time
Smote on his mouth, and from the crowd
Yells joined with laughter to the chime

Of heavy muffled bells, and loud
Beating of sullen drums: they led
Him bare-foot on the dusty road,

A rope about his neck that bled
With chafing; then upon an hill,
Where on his weary bended head

A sword fell, while where yet the still
Day blazed upon his distant land,
His lady by the singing rill

Held her new lover by his hand.

JULY.

O Queen of Months, awake and sing!
O dawn-clouds red with day!
O woods and mountains wake and ring!
O hillside fountains play!
O poppies laugh amid the corn!
O blue-bells shake with glee!
Ye saw my love this misty morn
Sail up the silver sea.

Her boat was swift; her sails were white;
There is no bird but knows
Her face is fairer than the light,
Her bosom than the snows;
Her hands are sweeter than the cells
Where hides the honey-bee;
Her mouth is made of joy that dwells
Upon the silver sea.

O skies, and breeze soft that bear
Her prow through wreaths of foam,
Shine, blow, shout, sing, to welcome her!
My lady cometh home!
My lady comes to land once more;
My lady comes to me;
Her ship is sailing on the shore
Along the silver sea!

A SUMMER'S LOVE.

Between blue June and red July
Love gat him golden wings to fly;
With ringing feet and singing mouth
He fled toward the scented south;
He fled and fell in ambush there
Amid my lady's coiling hair.

Between July and August-time
Love filled his mouth with honeyed rhyme;
Cool wine between his lips was sweet
While rose and lily drooped with heat;
On him there blew no wine to rouse
Beneath green shade of apple-boughs.

Between the garden walks aflame
With flowers, ere yet September came,
Love lay, and wearying hour by hour
Kissed once her beauty's sanguine flower,
Then dreamed of all desires gone by
With fiery footsteps of July.

SONG AT SUNSET.

Come! our vessel sways:
Our untroubled home
Calls us over ways
Of untravelled foam,
Calls us over ways
That no feet have clomb,
Over straits and bays
Of untravelled foam.

There the stars above
Watch, a silent throng,
Perfect nights of love
Marvellously long:
There the nights of love
Pass as in a song
Never wearied of,
Marvellously long.

There may we forget
Lands wherein respire
Longing and regret,
Sorrows and desire.
Longing and regret
Fade, as from a lyre
Notes that touch and fret
Sorrows and desire.

There our grief will be
As a sea-bird's wing
In the mystery
Of the sunsetting,
As a mystery
That awakes to sing
On a dreamy sea
In the sunsetting.

AFTER PARTING.

I throw my wreath before her door,
Cast ashes on my hair;
What has been will be never more
Albeit we found it fair:
Though now no more where poppies gleam
Shall we deem life divine,
Our love will glide, a ghostly dream,
Through vales of Proserpine.

REMEMBRANCE.

We know that when Apollo dwelt on earth
Men made him herdsman of their sheep and swine;
A later god, more human, less divine
Found that with them a cross was deemed his worth;
And did the Muses leave their heavenly birth
To chant in lane and highway, they would win
Brief answer, that they best had learn to spin,
Nor make themselves sad whetstones for men's mirth.

These rhymes of mine, wrung forth by weariness
Of weary life among these fools, may bring
Me in my lifetime nothing: let it be.
But God! I pray Thee in after time to bless
Me with some poet-lover who may sing
My name, my lady's and our memory.

MUSCADINE.

I.

Rose of Provence, not well
Thou hast come where no man knows
Thy brethren's fragrant smell,
Rose.

None here may say how those
Flame-colours burn, or tell
How their deep hearts unclose.

Alone I feel thy spell,
Knowing how the flower-land glows
Where thy companions fell,
Rose!

II.

Flower of the south, we twain
Halve secrets of one hour
Of April's sun and rain,
Flower.

Dead May-day's shine and shower
And soft hands kissed in vain
That plucked thee from thy bower!

Of dead delight and pain
Only my grief for dower
And thy dried leaves remain,
Flower.

HER TRYST.

Three hours I watched the sliding moon,
And the white rivulet at my feet
Dance to its old light silver tune,
And smelt the languid puffs of sweet
Dim-scented roses, dense with heat.

I leaned across an apple-bough,
And heard the cicales chirp afar:
The dream of pleasure did endow
That summer night with many a star
That shine not where the planets are.

Hard by, I heard the drowsy sea
Roll murmurs to the sleeping land;
God knows what thoughts were born in me.
It was a touch of her light hand
That made my heart to understand.

So as night fell I wandered out
Into her tangled orchard close;
The time was thirsty with long drought:
I walked between the swooning rows
Of crimson and the yellow rose.

Cold little shivers went and came
Along my body, as each dream
Of her pale face stung like a flame,
Her face I saw within the gleam
Of moonlit ripples in the stream.

Thus waited I: three hours at least;
And might have slept, so sweet it was,
Only my heart burned for the feast
Of hearing her soft footsteps pass
Brushing amid the burnt-up grass.

Then I grew sad; perchance, I said,
She has forgotten, lies asleep
Her loose hair pillowing her head;
Mine eyes were full with tears to weep,
Then, lo! I heard her long skirts sweep

Along the pathway; seeking me
She moved her neck and little face,
An apple on a stately tree:
I did not stir from out my place
Nigh fainting so to see her grace.

One hand caught up her skirt: she stood
Swaying her tender body tall,
As sways a cypress in the wood,
Sideways, to listen to my call.
I heard her bosom rise and fall.

I think again I see her there,
Uncertain if her quest was vain—
The moonlight touching her red hair;
And musing on our long past pain,
My blood beats hard in every vein.

I will not tell you how I spake
The little sob of her delight,
Our kisses. Still I ache and ache,
Remembering all in time's despite.
We had but little sleep that night.

She is long dead; that night alone
Was ours; I strayed from fight to fight;
She drooped upon her noble's throne.
Remember, when my soul takes flight,
Once in my time I had some light.

THE SINGER'S TOMB.

If, on a summer day ye pass beside
The shore look up, where from the cliff descend
Two streams which run a little side by side,
Then part and later in the sea have end;
There lies the singer, where the streams diverge;
He sings not now, nor hears the murmuring surge.

One love had he who gave no love to him;
He sang, and no man listened to his song;
He sends this message from his silence dim,
“I left life sadly though it did me wrong,
Dying unloved, too young:” and for his name,
Ye will not find it in the books of fame.

THE END OF AUTUMN.

O my dead youth, O summers passed in vain!
For me through no September's evening mist
Will roll no corn or vintage-bearing wain
Deep-laden from my dried and sterile plain;
The parting swallows mock with “Had I wist”
The floating hopes that I have never kissed.

Alas! I sob, “alas, what might have been,”
And hate myself, sole author of my woe,
For all dead pleasures played out long ago,
To leave a gesturing shadow on the scene,
With moaning mouth, and feet that pace between
Gilt crowns, and masks and sceptres lying low.

Ah, had I wist when dawn came up with spring!
Ah, had I wist among the summer's flowers!
Now Autumn fading with the crimson hours,
Above my living tomb bids sorrow ring
The muffled bell that shakes the ruined towers
And yellow woods where I was wont to sing.

AN EVENING LAMENT.

When, on the purple waters lulled to rest,
The sinking sun, like one who slowly dies
And looks across the crimson-blossoming west,
And vainly strives to hold the hour that flies,

Remembering sunsets that have seen his head
Ringed with love's aureole, and have passed away,
Whose sweetness, save in memory, long has fled,
And that may live but while his soul shall stay,

Gleams sadly, and with the rising clouds a peace
Falls on the moorland open to the sky,
When all things, even the murmuring waters, cease
To speak more loudly than a stifled sigh,

When Hesperus, loved of all men from of old,
Mirror of love's delight and of despair,
Shines in the front of heaven's most glowing gold,
Amid the heights of orange-tinted air,

O Misery, grant thy slave one hour's release!
Too long, too long have I with wounded feet
Sought after thee the place of love's decease,
The place where love and death at last may meet.

Flower after flower sinks down, decays and dies;
Leaf after leaf fades, falls and is no more;
Sunset and night, and noonday and sunrise
Pass, though new dawns and twilights wait in store:

I, I who yearn to feel the frozen breath
Of death benumb my mouth and eyes and cheek,
Among the race of man that perisheth
Alone find not what all may find who seek.

O Misery! serpents are the chains that bind
My feet; my feet are bound with thine own hair;
Thy hands are armed with scorpions, and thy mind
Is as a sea of madness and despair!

TWO VOICES.

What sounds there in the gusty night,
(Only the wind and fall of the rain)
That seems the voice of my heart's delight?
(Leaves that tap on the window pane.)

What drifts there between earth and sky
(Only the wind and fall of the rain),
That flies more swift than the clouds can fly?
(Trees that shudder and groan and strain.)

What cry calls from the whirl and din
(Only the wind and fall of the rain),
And wails as though it would fain come in?
(Waves that thunder below the plain.)

Whose white bosom or arm or face
(Only the wind and fall of the rain),
Gleams out there in the mad sea's race?
(Foam that smokes from the seething main.)

Whose long hair blows back from a head
(Only the wind and fall of the rain)
That once I kissed, and is now long dead?
(Hair of the gale that no bonds restrain.)

What low moan, as it floats away
(Only the wind and fall of the rain),
Seems to sob, thou shalt rue the day?
(Thy love and thou are one, not twain.)

Yea, for I know I shall rue the day
(Only the wind and fall of the rain)
When I turned the ghost of my love away.
(Thy tears and love are alike in vain.)

HYMN TO NIGHT.

Along what pathway sown with stars for seed
May we seek thee, O queen inviolate?
Nay, on no way: for at our hour of need
Thou comest covering us from love and hate.

Dark huntress on dim ways beneath the moon,
Thy feet fall on the silver-glittering waves,
Thy hands bear sleep for thine unvalued boon,
Thy voice is heard among the silent graves.

O Night, thou sheddest calm oblivion
On all that yearn for peace; thou succourest
The halt and maimed, the blind, and every one
Whom life has burned with anguish and unrest.

The strong, the fair, these have their hour to live,
These laugh their time and die; but we, but we
To whom no sun had ever gifts to give
Lift up our hands to heaven and call to thee.

I seek not fame or wealth or even love:
Alone I stand beside the waves in flight,
And call thee lingering in the skies above,
O sombre, blest and everliving Night!

ON THE SHORE.

Above her head, along the shaking pier
Feet came and went, and in her maddened fear
Seemed trampling down the life she fain would lift.
Dark lowering clouds, wherethrough by many a rift
Stars gleamed and vanished, like vast birds in flight,
Blocked out the skies and smote her with affright.
Beside the ravenous waves she paced, and heard
The laughter of the living, jesting word,
Snatched by the wind, and from the wall-girt hill
Valse-music, loud one moment, then struck still.
“But not for me,” she moaned, “Now all is done;
There is no more for me beneath the sun;
No more; no more!” The plunging waves beat in
Crashing, and then the wind's tumultuous din
Filled up their pauses, with the dragging sound
Of stones sucked backward from the sliding ground,
And noise of gathering rollers. “Magdalen!
Yea, such am I who thought not such things then;
There is no Christ for me, no, not for me!
She found her Christ; but this life-swallowing sea
Must be my Saviour, and my god is death.

She was made clean, but I, but I!” Her breath
Caught, and her mouth was silent; “Magdalen!”
In scorn her voice took up the word again,
And louder came the valse-tune, mocking her.
“Ah, yes, up there they dance and laugh, up there
They dance and sing, and I die here alone.”
The spray dashed in her face, and with a moan,
“God, God, deliver me,” she sobbed, “O God,
That I must die!” With swifter steps she trod
The pebbles, then stood still, and lifting high
Her arms, she cried, “O God, that I must die;”
Then, with her hands before her face, she went
Into the foam, and fell. A wave half spent
Recoiled and drew her outward. Through the night,
The venomous waters, breaking on each height,
Washed her white beaten body to and fro,
Unresting in their tireless ebb and flow.

A VIGIL.

Beyond the night I gaze, and send afar
Mine eyes to search if there be any light,
Yet though they strain they see no glimmering star
Beyond the night.

I listen if some lighter strain may smite
Mine ears than bitter fates that ruin and mar
Men's lives with sound of waves or winds in flight.

A moan from seas beyond the harbour bar
I hear, a moan of seas that charge and fight,
A moan that blows from lands where lost souls are
Beyond the night.

CONFESSION.

I am as a December day that dawns
Chill, dark and cheerless on deserted lawns,
Where no bird lives, save one old crow whose curse
Sounds like dim echoes of a dead remorse,
Where rotting leaves, dead roots and reeking mist
Call to the long past summer, Had I wist.

I am as an old hulk that barely rides
Upon the waves which beat its battered sides;
But, conquered by its fates' unaltered spell,
Groans, creaks and plunges to their fall and swell
And while each roller bears it deeper down,
Dreams of old days, of many a sunlit town,
Rich shores, and seas that it has never crossed,
Self-hating for the joys that it has lost,
Abandoned, mastless, drifting to and fro
Upon the dull unending ebb and flow.

PRAYER.

When on my lowered coffin lid
The dried mould, hollow-sounding, falls,
And passing forth you leave me hid
Between the deep steep earthy walls,

Let never thought of griefs we had,
Sweet phantom, rise to trouble thee
With sense of sadness: nay, be glad
To know how well it is with me!

L'ENVOYE.

Well I remember, dear one, those dead days
We watched from dawn to silent sundown strays—
We plucked from passing plumes of envious time,
Too sweet to stay, too sweet to mould in rhyme;
The sea that far below our villa lay,
The cliffs that shone along the rounded bay,
The boats that stirred gold ripples in the dawn,
Our walks at evening on the little lawn,
Your face, your hand blue-veined and thin and white,
The fisher's song that rose before the night
To praise the sunlight from the darkening coast.

When in some months, or some few years at most,
We both lie dead, then, as we may not now,
Will our two souls tell to each other how
They loved this time that I sing of to-day:
Meanwhile, dear heart, remember while you may!

EXPLICIT.