fleeting;

Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating

Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.

All things must die.
Spring will come nevermore.
O, vanity!

Death waits at the door.

See our friends are all forsaking
The wine and merrymaking.
We are called- we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;

And the waves climb high and fast. O, kiss me, kiss me, once again,

Lest thy kiss should be the last!
O kiss me ere we part;
Grow closer to my heart!

My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main.

O joy! O bliss of blisses!

My heart of hearts art thou. Come bathe me with thy kisses, My eyelids and my brow. Hark how the wild rain hisses,

And the loud sea roars below.

Thy heart beats through thy rosy limbs, So gladly doth it stir;

Thine eye in drops of gladness swims. I have bathed thee with the pleasant myrrh;

Thy locks are dripping balm;
Thou shalt not wander hence to-night,
I'll stay thee with my kisses.
To-night the roaring brine

Will rend thy golden tresses;

The ocean with the morrow light Will be both blue and calm;

kiss as soft as mine.

No Western odors wander

On the black and moaning sea, And when thou art dead, Leander, My soul must follow thee!

O go not yet, my love!

Thy voice is sweet and low;

The deep salt wave breaks in above

Those marble steps below.
The turret-stairs are wet

That lead into the sea.
Leander go not yet.
The pleasant stars have set :
O, go not, go not yet,

Or I will follow thee!

THE MYSTIC.

Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud Which droops low-hung on either gate of

life,

Both birth and death: he in the centre fixt,

Saw far on each side through the grated gates

Most pale and clear and lovely distances.
He often lying broad awake, and yet
Remaining from the body, and apart
In intellect and power and will, hath heard
Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things creeping to a day of doom.
How could ye know him? Ye were yet

within

The narrower circle: he had wellnigh reached

The last, which with a region of white

flame,

him thrones :

Ye knew him not; he was not one of ye, Ye scorned him with an undiscerning

scorn:

Ye could not read the marvel in his eye,
The still serene abstraction: he hath felt
The vanities of after and before;
Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart
The stern experiences of converse lives,
The linked woes of many a fiery change
Had purified, and chastened, and made
free.

Always there stood before him, night and day,

Of wayward vary-colored circumstance The imperishable presences serene, Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound, Dim shadows but unwaning presences Fourfaced to four corners of the sky : And yet again, three shadows, fronting

Upburning, and an ether of black blue, Investeth and ingirds all other lives.

THE GRASSHOPPER.

I.

VOICE of the summer wind, Joy of the summer plain, Life of the summer hours, Carol clearly, bound along. No Tithon thou as poets feign (Shame fall'em they are deaf and blind), But an insect lithe and strong, Bowing the seeded summer flowers. Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel, Vaulting on thine airy feet. Clap thy shielded sides and carol, Carol clearly, chirrup sweet. Thou art a mailéd warrior in youth and strength complete ; Armed cap-a-pie Full fair to see; Unknowing fear, Undreading loss, A gallant cavalier, Sans peur et sans reproche, In sunlight and in shadow, The Bayard of the meadow.

II.

I would dwell with thee, Merry grasshopper, Thou art so glad and free,

And as light as air; Thou hast no sorrow or tears, Thou hast no compt of years, No withered immortality, But a short youth sunny and free. Carol clearly, bound along, Soon thy joy is over, A summer of loud song,

And slumbers in the clover.
What hast thou to do with evil
In thine hour of love and revel,

In thy heat of summer pride,
Pushing the thick roots aside
Of the singing floweréd grasses,
That brush thee with their
tresses?

What hast thou to do with evil,
Shooting, singing, ever springing
In and out the emerald glooms,
Ever leaping, ever singing,
Lighting on the golden blooms?

silken

LOVE, PRIDE, AND FORGETFUL

NESS.

The day, the diamonded night,

The echo, feeble child of sound, The heavy thunder's griding might, The herald lightning's starry bound, The vocal spring of bursting bloom,

The naked summer's glowing birth, The troublous autumn's sallow gloom, The hoarhead winter paving earth

With sheeny white, are full of strang
Astonishment and boundless change,
Each sun which from the centre flings
Grand music and redundant fire,
The burning belts, the mighty rings,
The murm'rous planets' rolling choir,
The globe-filled arch that, cleaving air,
Lost in its own effulgence sleeps,
The lawless comets as they glare,

And thunder through the sapphire deeps
In wayward strength, and full of
strange
Astonishment and boundless change.

LOST HOPE.

was mine:

Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep, And showering down the glory of light

some day,

Smiles on the earth's worn brow to win her if she may.

LOVE AND SORROW.

O MAIDEN, fresher than the first green leaf With which the fearful springtide flecks

the lea,

Weep not, Almeida, that I said to thee That thou hast half my heart, for bitter grief

Doth hold the other half in sovranty. Thou art my heart's sun in love's crystalline :

Yet on both sides at once thou canst not shine:

Thine is the bright side of my heart, and thine

My heart's day, but the shadow of my heart,

Issue of its own substance, my heart's night Thou canst not lighten even with thy light, All-powerful in beauty as thou art. Almeida, if my heart were substanceless, Then might thy rays pass through to

the other side,

So swiftly, that they nowhere would abide, But lose themselves in utter emptiness. Half-light, half-shadow, let my spirit sleep;

They never learned to love who never knew to weep.

TO A LADY SLEEPING.

O THOU whose fringéd lids I gaze upon, Through whose dim brain the winged dreams are borne,

Unroof the shrines of clearest vision,
In honor of the silver-fleckéd morn;

Moving his crest to all sweet plots of flowers

And watered valleys where the young birds sing;

Could I thus hope my lost delight's renewing,

I straightly would command the tears to

creep

From my charged lids; but inwardly I weep,

Some vital heat as yet my heart is wooing: That to itself hath drawn the frozen rain From my cold eyes, and melted it again.

SONNET.

THOUGH Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon,

And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl,

All night through archways of the bridgéd pearl,

And portals of pure silver, walks the moon. Walk on, my soul, nor crouch to agony, Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy, And dross to gold with glorious alchemy, Basing thy throne above the world's an

noy.

Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth

That roar beneath; unshaken peace hath won thee;

So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth;

So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee;

light

heated eyne!

So their wan limbs no more might come between

The moon and the moon's reflex in the night,

thee.

We beat upon our aching hearts in rage; We cry for thee; we deem the world thy tomb.

As dwellers in lone planets look upon

light.

gloom,