MIRAGE.

THE 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.

THE door was shut. I looked between

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 nought 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.

SOUND SLEEP.

SOME 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 corn fields 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 for ever 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.