The hare sleeps where it lies,

With wary half-closed eyes ;

The cock has ceased to crow, the hen to cluck :
Only the fox is out, some heedless duck

Or chicken to surprise.

Remote, each single star

Comes out, till there they are

All shining brightly: how the dews fall damp! While close at hand the glow-worm lights her lamp Or twinkles from afar.

But evening now is done

As much as if the sun

Day-giving had arisen in the east:

For night has come; and the great calm has ceased, The quiet sands have run.

WIFE TO HUSBAND.

ARDON the faults in me,

PARDO

the love of years ago: Good by.

I must drift across the sea,

I must sink into the snow,
I must die.

You can bask in this sun,

You can drink wine, and eat :

Good by.

I must gird myself and run,
Though with unready feet:
I must die.

Blank sea to sail upon,

Cold bed to sleep in :
Good by.

While you clasp, I must be gone
For all your weeping:

I must die.

A kiss for one friend,
And a word for two,
Good by :-

A lock that you must send,
A kindness you must do:
I must die.

Not a word for you,

Not a lock or kiss,

Good by.

We, one, must part in two;

Verily death is this:

I must die.

"A

THREE SEASONS.

CUP for hope!" she said,

In springtime ere the bloom was old:

The crimson wine was poor and cold

By her mouth's richer red.

"A cup for love!" how low,

How soft the words; and all the while
Her blush was rippling with a smile
Like summer after snow.

A cup for memory!"

Cold cup that one must drain alone :
While autumn winds are up and moan
Across the barren sea.

Hope, memory, love :

Hope for fair morn, and love for day,
And memory for the evening gray
And solitary dove.

TH

MIRAGE.

HE hope I dreamed of was a dream, Was but a dream; and now I wake Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,

A weeping willow in a lake;

I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;

My silent heart, lie still and break:

Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.

SHUT OUT.

HE door was shut. I looked between

TH

Its iron bars; and saw it lie,

My garden, mine, beneath the sky,

Pied with all flowers bedewed and green:

From bough to bough the song-birds crossed,
From flower to flower the moths and bees;

With all its nests and stately trees
It had been mine, and it was lost.

A shadowless spirit kept the gate,

Blank and unchanging like the grave.
I peering through said: "Let me have
Some buds to cheer my outcast state."

He answered not. "Or give me, then,
But one small twig from shrub or tree;
And bid my home remember me
Until I come to it again."

The spirit was silent; but he took
Mortar and stone to build a wall;
He left no loophole great or small
Through which my straining eyes might look:

So now I sit here quite alone

Blinded with tears; nor grieve for that, For naught is left worth looking at Since my delightful land is gone.

A violet bed is budding near,

Wherein a lark has made her nest: And good they are, but not the best; And dear they are, but not so dear.

S

SOUND SLEEP.

OME are laughing, some are weeping;
She is sleeping, only sleeping.

Round her rest wild flowers are creeping;
There the wind is heaping, heaping
Sweetest sweets of Summer's keeping,
By the cornfields ripe for reaping.

There are lilies, and there blushes
The deep rose, and there the thrushes
Sing till latest sunlight flushes

In the west; a fresh wind brushes

Through the leaves while evening hushes.