In the cool-breathing night

The starry sky is deep.

Still on through glimmering light

Till we lie down to sleep;

Then let night's fall

End all.

EVENING IN TYRINGHAM VALLEY

WHAT domes and pinnacles of mist and fire
Are builded in yon spacious realms of light
All silently, as did the walls aspire

Templing the ark of God by day and night!
Noiseless and swift, from darkening ridge to ridge,
Through purple air that deepens down the day,
Over the valley springs a shadowy bridge.
The evening star's keen, solitary ray
Makes more intense the silence, and the glad,
Unmelancholy, restful, twilight gloom -
So full of tenderness, that even the sad
Remembrances that haunt the soul take bloom
Like that on yonder mountain.

Now the bars

Of sunset all burn black; the day doth fail,
And the skies whiten with the eternal stars.
O, let thy spirit stay with me, sweet vale!

PART III

A WEEK'S CALENDAR

I- NEW YEAR

EACH New Year is a leaf of our love's rose;
It falls, but quick another rose-leaf grows.
So is the flower from year to year the same,
But richer, for the dead leaves feed its flame.

A WEEK'S CALENDAR

II — A NEW SOUL

To see the rose of morning slow unfold
Each wondrous petal to that heart of gold;
To see from out the dark, unknowing night
A new soul dawn with such undreamed-of light,
And slowly all its loveliness and splendor

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Pour forth as stately music pours, magnificently tender!

Thine shall be all of beauty whereof the poet sang

The perfume, and the pageant, the melody, the mirth Of the golden day, and the starry night;

Of heaven, and of earth.

O, keep pure thy soul!

IV

"THY MIND IS LIKE A CRYSTAL BROOK"

THY mind is like a crystal brook

Wherein clean creatures live at ease,

In sun-bright waves or shady nook.
Birds sing above it,

The warm-breathed cattle love it,
It doth sweet childhood please.

Accurst be he by whom it were undone,
Or thing or thought whose presence
The birds and beasts would loathly shun,
Would make its crystal waters foully run,
And drive sweet childhood from its pleasance.

V

ONE DEED MAY MAR A LIFE"

ONE deed may mar a life,

And one can make it;
Hold firm thy will for strife,

Lest a quick blow break it!
Even now from far on viewless wing
Hither speeds the nameless thing

Shall put thy spirit to the test.
Haply or e'er yon sinking sun

Shall drop behind the purple West
All will be lost

or won!

VI- - THE UNKNOWN

How strange to look upon the life beyond
Our human cognizance with so deep awe
And haunting dread; a sense as of remorse,
A looking-for of judgment, a great weight
Of things unknown to happen! We who live
Blindly from hour to hour in very midst
Of mysteries; of shapeless, changing glooms;
Of nameless terrors; issues vast and black;
Of airy whims, slight fantasies, and flights
That lead to unimaginable woe:

The unweighed word cloying the life of love;
One clod of earth outblotting all the stars;
Some secret, dark inheritance of will,

And the scared soul plunges to conscious doom!

Thou who hast wisdom, fear not Death, but Life!

SONGS

Ere he learns to live.

Ah, friend, in thy deep grave,

What now can change, what now can save?

PART IV

SONGS

<< BECAUSE THE ROSE MUST FADE"

BECAUSE the rose must fade,

Shall I not love the rose?
Because the summer shade

Passes when winter blows,

Shall I not rest me there

In the cool air?

Because the sunset sky

Makes music in my soul,

Only to fail and die,

Shall I not take the whole

Of beauty that it gives

While yet it lives?

Because the sweet of youth

Doth vanish all too soon,

Shall I forget, forsooth,

To learn its lingering tune;

My joy to memorize

In those young eyes?

If, like the summer flower

That blooms a fragrant death,

Keen music hath no power

To live beyond its breath,

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Then of this flood of song

Let me drink long!

Ah, yes, because the rose

Fades like the sunset skies;

Because rude winter blows

All bare, and music dies-
Therefore, now is to me
Eternity!

"FADES THE ROSE"

FADES the rose; the year grows old;

The tale is told;

Youth doth depart

Only stays the heart.

Ah, no! if stays the heart,

Youth can ne'er depart,

Nor the sweet tale be told —

Never the rose fade, nor the year grow old.

THE WINTRY HEART

ON the sad winter trees

The dead, red leaves remain,

Tho' to and fro the bleak winds blow,

And falls the freezing rain.

So to the wintry heart

Clings color of the past,

While through dead leaves shudders and grieves

The melancholy blast.