Faint, faint and clear,
Faint as the music that in dreams we hear
Shaking the curtain-fold of sleep,
That shuts away
The world’s hoarse voice, the sights and sounds of day,
Her sorry joys, her phantoms false and fleet,—
So softly, softly stirs
The wind’s low murmur in the rippled wheat.
From west to east
The warm breath...
I put thy hand aside, and turn away:
Why should I blame the slight and fickle heart
That cannot bravely go, nor boldly stay,
Too weak to cling, and yet too fond to part?
Dead Passion chains thee where her ashes lie.
Cold is the shrine, ah, cold for evermore!
Why linger, then, while golden moments fly
And sunshine waits beyond the open...
Were i a happy bird,
Building my little nest each early spring,
It might be easy then to keep God’s word,
His praise to sing;
Easy to live content,
Tending my little ones,—of love secure,
Knowing no agony for time misspent,
Or thought impure!
Were I a butterfly,
A bright-winged creature of the...
The spinner twisted her slender thread
As she sat and spun:
“The earth and the heavens are mine,” she said,
“And the moon and sun;
Into my web the sunlight goes,
And the breath of May,
And the crimson life of the new-blown rose
That was born to-day.”
The spinner sang in the hush of noon
And her song was low:
“Ah...
What ’s love, when the most is said? The flash of the lightning fleet,
Then, darkness that shrouds the soul,—but the earth is firm to my feet;
The rocks and the tides endure, the grasses and herbs return,
The path to my foot is sure, and the sods to my bosom yearn.
What ’s fame, when the truth is told? A shout to a distant hill,
The craigs may echo a...
When leaves turn outward to the light,
And all the roads are fringed with green,
When larks are pouring, high, unseen,
The joy they find in song and flight,
Then I, too, with the lark would wing
My little flight, and, soaring, sing.
When larks drop downward to the nest,
And day drops downward to the sea,
And song and wing...
A breath can fan love’s flame to burning,—
Make firm resolve of trembling doubt.
But, strange! at fickle fancy’s turning,
The selfsame breath can blow it out.
When psyche’s friend becomes her lover,
How sweetly these conditions blend!
But, oh, what anguish to discover
Her lover has become—her friend!
God keep you, dearest, all this lonely night:
The winds are still,
The moon drops down behind the western hill;
God keep you safely, dearest, till the light.
God keep you then when slumber melts away,
And care and strife
Take up new arms to fret our waking life,
God keep you through the battle of the day.
God keep you...
When Psyche’s friend becomes her lover,
How sweetly these conditions blend!
But, oh, what anguish to discover
Her lover has become—her friend!
