You were glad to-night: and now you’ve gone away.
Flushed in the dark, you put your dreams to bed;
But as you fall asleep I hear you say
Those tired sweet drowsy words we left unsaid.
Sleep well: for I can follow you, to bless
And lull your distant beauty where you roam;
And with wild songs of hoarded loveliness
Recall you to these arms that were your home...
They say that, afar in the land of the west,
Where the bright golden sun sinks in glory to rest,
Mid ferns where the hunter ne’er ventured to tread,
A fair lake unruffled and sparkling is spread;
Where, lost in his course, the rapt Indian discovers,
In distance seen dimly, the green Isle of Lovers.
There verdure fades never; immortal in bloom,...
Down the world with Marna!
That ’s the life for me!
Wandering with the wandering wind,
Vagabond and unconfined!
Roving with the roving rain
Its unboundaried domain!
Kith and kin of wander-kind,
Children of the sea!
Petrels of the sea-drift!
Swallows of the lea!
Arabs of the whole wide girth
Of the wind-...
I ’d been away from her three years,—about that,
And I returned to find my Mary true;
And though I ’d question her, I did not doubt that
It was unnecessary so to do.
’T was by the chimney-corner we were sitting:
“Mary,” said I, “have you been always true?”
“Frankly,” says she, just pausing in her knitting,
“I don’t think I ’ve...
Two lovers by a moss-grown spring:
They leaned soft cheeks together there,
Mingled the dark and sunny hair,
And heard the wooing thrushes sing.
O budding time!
O love’s blest prime!
Two wedded from the portal stept:
The bells made happy carolings,
The air was soft as fanning wings,
White petals on the pathway...
From the Chinese by William. R. Alger
SHE says, “The cock crows,—hark!”
He says, “No! still ’t is dark.”
She says, “The dawn grows bright,”
He says, “O no, my Light.”
She says, “Stand up and say,
Gets not the heaven gray?”
He says, “The morning star
Climbs the horizon’s bar.”
She says, “Then quick depart:
...
Sienna
I Love thee, love thee, Giulio!
Some call me cold, and some demure,
And if thou hast ever guessed that so
I love thee … well;—the proof was poor,
And no one could be sure.
Before thy song (with shifted rhymes
To suit my name) did I undo
The persian? If it moved sometimes,
Thou hast not seen a hand push...
Give place, ye lovers, here before
That spent your boasts and brags in vain;
My lady’s beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sun the candle light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.
And thereto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
...
IN 1 moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter)
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;
Through God’s own heather we wonned together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats waved alow...
There shall be couches whence faint odours rise,
Divans like sepulchres, deep and profound;
Strange flowers that bloomed beneath diviner skies
...
