So every mournful thought found there a tone
To match despondence; sorrow knew its mate;
Ill fortune sighed, and mute despair made moan;
And one deep chord gave answer, "Late, too late."
Then ceased the quivering strain, and swift returned
Into its depths the secret of each heart;

Each face took on its mask, where lately burned

A spirit charmed to sight by music's art;

But unto one who caught that inner flame

No face of all can ever seem the same.

THE VALLEY ROAD

By this road have past

Hope and Joy adance;

And one at dark fled fast,

Quick breath, and look askance;

And in this dust have dropt

Tears that never stopt.

HAWTHORNE IN BERKSHIRE

And by this road was borne,
Betwixt sweet banks of fern,
And willow rows, and corn, —
He, who will return

Not, tho' others may,

The old, familiar way.

Two streams within these walls
For ever and ever flow;
Back and forth the current falls,
The long processions go;
A hundred years have flown,
The human tides pour on

And shall, when you and I
Pass no more again.
Beneath the bending sky
Shall be no lack of men;
Never the road run bare,
Tho' other feet may fare.

HAWTHORNE IN BERKSHIRE

259

MOUNTAINS and valleys! dear ye are to me:
Your streams wild-wandering, ever-tranquil lakes,
And forests that make murmur like the sea;
And this keen air that from the hurt soul takes
Its pain and languor. - Doubly dear ye are

For many a lofty memory that throws

A splendor on these hights. - 'Neath yon low star,
That like a dewdrop melts in heaven's rose,

Dwelt once a starry spirit; there he smote
Life from the living hills; a little while
He rested from the raging of the world.

This Brook of Shadows, whose dark waters purled Solace to his deep mind, it felt his smile Haunted, and melancholy, and remote.

LATE SUMMER

THO' summer days are all too fleet,.
Not yet the year is touched with cold;
Through the long billows of the wheat
The green is lingering in the gold.

The birds that thrilled the April copse,
. Ah! some have flown on silent wings;
Yet one sweet music never stops:

The constant vireo sings and sings.

AN HOUR IN A STUDIO

EACH picture was a painted memory

Of the far plains he loved, and of their life,-
Weird, mystical, dark, inarticulate, —
And cities hidden high against the blue,

Whose sky-hung steps one Indian could guard.
The enchanted Mesa there its fated wall
Lifted, and all its story lived again-
How, in the happy planting time, the strong
Went down to push the seeds into the sand,
Leaving the old and sick. Then reeled the world
And toppled to the plain the perilous path.
Death climbed another way to them who stayed.
He showed us pictured thirst, a dreadful sight;
And many tales he told that might have come,
Brought by some planet-wanderer- fresh from Mars,
Or from the silver deserts of the moon.

A SONG OF THE ROAD

But I remember better than all else

One night he told of in that land of fright-
The love-songs swarthy men sang to their herds
On the high plains to keep the beasts in heart;
Piercing the silence one keen tenor voice
Singing "Ai nostri monti" clear and high:
Instead of stakes and fences round about
They circled them with music in the night.

ILLUSION

261

WHAT strange, fond trick is this mine eyes are playing!
I know 'tis but the visioning mind perplexes,—
The inward sight the outer sense betraying,-
Yet the sweet lie the spirit wounds and vexes:
As at still midnight pondering here, and reading,
Right on the book's white page, and 'twixt the lines,
And wreathing through the words, and quick receding,
Only to come again (as 'mid the vines

The dryads flash and hide), white arms are gleaming,
A light hand hovers, curvèd lips are red,

Locks in a warm and soundless wind are streaming Across the image of one glorious head;

No more,

no more,

shut now the volume lies

On that swift, piercing look, those haunting eyes.

A SONG OF THE ROAD

SPEED, speed, speed

Through the day, through the night!

Cities are beads on the thread of our flight;

Peaks melt in peaks and are lost in the air.
Speed, speed, speed-

But, O, the dearth of it,
Thou not there!

Every journey is good if love be the goal of it. What's all the world if love's not the soul of it; What were the worth of it

Thou not there!

"NOT HERE”

I

Not here, but somewhere, so men say,

More bright the day,

And the blue sky

More nigh;

Somewhere, afar, the bird of dawn sings sweeter;

Somewhere completer

The round of hopes and heart-beats that make life More than a bootless strife.

II

But, ah! there be that know
Where joy alone doth grow.
Led by one true star,

The journey is not far.

'Tis in a garden in no distant land,

High-walled on every hand;

And the key thereof

Is love.

"NO, NO,' SHE SAID"

"No, no," she said;

"I may not wed;

If say I must

I cannot stay;

nay must I say;

Nay, nay, I needs must flout thee!"