I warn, like the one drop of rain On your face, ere the storm; Or tremble in whispered refrain With your blood, beating warm. I am the presence that ever Baffles your touch’s endeavor,— Gone like the glimmer of dust Dispersed by a gust. I am the absence that taunts you, The fancy that haunts you; The ever unsatisfied guess That, questioning emptiness, Wins a sigh for reply. Nay, nothing am I, But the flight of a breath— For I am Death!
I the sun had set; The leaves with dew were wet: Down fell a bloody dusk On the woods, that second of May, Where Stonewall’s corps, like a beast of prey, Tore through, with angry tusk. “They’ve trapped us, boys!” Rose from our flank a voice. With a rush of steel and smoke On came the rebels...
Do you remember, my sweet, absent son, How in the soft June days forever done You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high; And, when I lifted you, soft came your cry,— “Put me ’way up,—’way, ’way up in blue sky”? I laughed and said I could not,—set you down, Your gray eyes wonder-filled...
I warn, like the one drop of rain On your face, ere the storm; Or tremble in whispered refrain With your blood, beating warm. I am the presence that ever Baffles your touch’s endeavor,— Gone like the glimmer of dust Dispersed by a gust. I am the absence that taunts you, The fancy that haunts...
Under the apple bough Love, in a dream of leaves, Dreamed we of love, as now,— All that gives beauty or grieves. Over the sad world then Curved like the sky that bough; I was in heaven then,— You are in heaven now.
The sunshine of thine eyes, (O still, celestial beam!) Whatever it touches it fills With the life of its lambent gleam. The sunshine of thine eyes, Oh, let it fall on me! Though I be but a mote of the air, I could turn to gold for thee.
