From farther still the wind brings fitfully The vast continual murmur of the sea,

Now loud, now almost dumb.

The gnats whirl in the air,

The evening gnats; and there

The owl opes broad his eyes and wings to sail For prey; the bat wakes; and the shell-less snail Comes forth, clammy and bare.

Hark! that's the nightingale,
Telling the self-same tale

Her song told when this ancient earth was young:
So echoes answered when her song was sung

In the first wooded vale.

We call it love and pain

The passion of her strain;

And yet we little understand or know:
Why should it not be rather joy that so
Throbs in each throbbing vein?

In separate herds the deer

Lie; here the bucks, and here

The does, and by its mother sleeps the fawn:
Through all the hours of night until the dawn
They sleep, forgetting fear.

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.

PARDON the faults in me,

For the love of years ago:
Good-bye.

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-bye.

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

Blank sea to sail upon,

Cold bed to sleep in :
Good-bye.

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-bye:-

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-bye.

We, one, must part in two:

Verily death is this:

I must die.

66

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 grey
And solitary dove.

MIRAGE.

HE hope I dreamed of was a dream,

THE

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.

I

A ROYAL PRINCESS.

A PRINCESS, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest,

Would rather be a peasant with her baby at her breast, For all I shine so like the sun, and am purple like the west.

Two and two my guards behind, two and two before, Two and two on either hand, they guard me evermore; Me, poor dove that must not coo-eagle that must

not soar.

All my fountains cast up perfumes, all my gardens grow

Scented woods and foreign spices, with all flowers in blow

That are costly, out of season as the seasons go.