fleeting; Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating Full merrily; All things must die. Death waits at the door. See our friends are all forsaking And the waves climb high and fast. O, kiss me, kiss me, once again, Lest thy kiss should be the last! 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; Will rend thy golden tresses; The ocean with the morrow light Will be both blue and calm; Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all And the billow will embrace thee with a Keen knowledges of low-embowéd eld) 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. That lead into the sea. 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. within The narrower circle: he had wellnigh reached The last, which with a region of white flame, ANGELS have talked with him, and showed Pure without heat, into a larger air 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, 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. In thy heat of summer pride, What hast thou to do with evil, 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 And thunder through the sapphire deeps LOST HOPE. ERE yet my heart was sweet Love's You cast to ground the hope which once 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, 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; So in thine hour of dawn, the body's youth, Long hath the white wave of the virgin| An honorable eld shall come upon thee. light With points of blast-borne hail their | Athwart the veils of evils which infold 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 Nor blot with floating shades the solar The mighty disk of their majestic sun, Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling light. gloom, |