Page images
PDF
EPUB

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.

There by day the lark is singing

And the grass and weeds are springing;
There by night the bat is winging';

There forever winds are bringing
Far-off chimes of church-bells ringing.

Night and morning, noon and even,
Their sound fills her dreams with Heaven:
The long strife at length is striven:
Till her grave-bands shall be riven

Such is the good portion given

To her soul at rest and shriven.

SONG.

HE sat and sang alway

SH

By the green margin of a stream,

Watching the fishes leap and play

Beneath the glad sunbeam.

I sat and wept alway

Beneath the moon's most shadowy beam, Watching the blossoms of the May

Weep leaves into the stream.

I wept for memory;

She sang for hope that is so fair: My tears were swallowed by the sea; Her songs died on the air.

SONG.

HEN I am dead, my dearest,

W Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress-tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

A

DEAD BEFORE DEATH.

SONNET.

H! changed and cold, how changed and very cold! With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes: Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise: This was the promise of the days of old!

Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould,
Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies:

We hoped for better things as years would rise,
But it is over as a tale once told.

All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,

All lost the present and the future time, All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before: So lost till death shut-to the opened door, So lost from chime to everlasting chime, So cold and lost forever evermore.

BITTER FOR SWEET.

UMMER is gone with all its roses,
Its sun and perfumes and sweet flowers,
Its wam air and refreshing showers:
And even Autumn closes.

Yea, Autumn's chilly self is going,
And winter comes which is yet colder;
Each day the hoar-frost waxes bolder

And the last buds cease blowing.

« PreviousContinue »