MONNA LISA.

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BURNING OLD LETTERS. 465

of mine,

One Sabbath pacifies my year;
I am the halcyon, this my nest;
And all is safely for the best
While the World's there and I am
here.

So I turn tory for the nonce,
And think the radical a bore,
Who cannot see, thick-witted dunce,
That what was good for people once
Must be as good forevermore.

Sun, sink no deeper down the sky;
Earth, never change this summer mood;
Breeze, loiter thus forever by,
Stir the dead leaf or let it lie:
Since I am happy, all is good.
MIDDLETON, August, 1884.

ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS WITH what odorous woods and spices Spared for royal sacrifices, With what costly gums seld-seen, Hoarded to embalm a queen, With what frankincense and myrrh, Burn these precious parts of her, Full of life and light and sweetness As a summer day's completeness, Joy of sun and song of bird Running wild in every word, Full of all the superhuman Grace and winsomeness of woman?

O'er these leaves her wrist has slid,
Thrilled with veins where fire is hid
'Neath the skin's pellucid veil,
Like the opal's passion pale;
This her breath hath sweetened; this
Still seems trembling with the kiss
She half-ventured on my name,
Brow and cheek and throat aflame;
Over all caressing lics

Sunshine left there by her eyes;
From them all an effluence rare
With her nearness fills the air,
Till the murmur I half-hear
Of her light feet drawing near.

Rarest woods were coarse and rough,
Sweetest spice not sweet enough,
Too impure all earthly fire
For this sacred funeral-pyre;
These rich relics must suffice
For their own dear sacrifice,

On the altar now, alas,

There they lie a crinkling mass,
Writhing still, as if with grief
Went the life from every leaf;
Then (heart-breaking palimpsest!)
Vanishing ere wholly guessed,
Suddenly some lines flash back,
Traced in lightning on the black,
And confess, till now denied,
All the fire they strove to hide.
What they told me, sacred trust,
Stays to glorify my dust,

There to burn through dust and damp
Like a mage's deathless lamp,
While an atom of this frame
Lasts to feed the dainty flame.

All is ashes now, but they
In my soul are laid away,

And their radiance round me hovers
Soft as moonlight over lovers,
Shutting her and me alone
In dream-Edens of our own;
First of lovers to invent

Love, and teach men what it meant.

THE PROTEST.

I COULD not bear to see those eyes
On all with wasteful largess shine,
And that delight of welcome rise
Like sunshine strained through amber
wine,

- FACT OR FANCY?

But that a glow from deeper skies, From conscious fountains more divire, Is (is it?) mine.

Be beautiful to all mankind,

As Nature fashioned thee to be; "T would anger me did all not find The sweet perfection that 's in thee: Yet keep one charm of charms be hind, Nay, thou 'rt so rich, keep two or three For (is it?) me!

THE PETITION.

Oн, tell me less or tell me more,
Soft eyes with mystery at the core,
That always seem to meet my own
Frankly as pansies fully blown,
Yet waver still 'tween no and yes!

So swift to cavil and deny,
Then parley with concessions shy,
Dear eyes, that make their youth be
mine

And through my inmost shadows shine,
Oh, tell me more or tell me less!

FACT OR FANCY?

In town I hear, scarce wakened yet,
My neighbor's clock behind the wall
Record the day's increasing debt,
And Cuckoo Cuckoo ! faintly call.

Our senses run in deepening grooves, Thrown out of which they lose their tact,

And consciousness with effort moves
From habit past to present fact.

So, in the country waked to-day,
I hear, unwitting of the change,
A cuckoo's throb from far away
Begin to strike, nor think it strango.

The sound creates its wonted frame:
My bed at home, the songster hid
Behind the wainscoting, -all came
As long association bid.

Then, half-aroused, ere yet Sleep's mist
From the mind's uplands furl away,
To the familiar sound I list,
Disputed for by Night and Day.

I count to learn how late it is,
Until, arrived at thirty-four,

I question, "What strange world is this Whose lavish hours would make me poor?"

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Still on it went,
With hints of mockery in its tone;
How could such hoards of time be spent
By one poor mortal's wit alone?

I have it! Grant, ye kindly Powers,

I from this spot may never stir,

If only these uncounted hours

CASA SIN ALMA.

RECUERDO DE MADRID.

SILENCIOSO por la puerta
Voy de su casa desierta
Do siempre feliz entré,

Y la encuentro en vano abierta
Cual la boca de una muerta
Despues que el alma se fué.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

But who She is, her form and face, These to the world of dream belong; She moves through fancy's visioned space,

Unbodied, like the cuckoo's song.

AGRO-DOLCE.

ONE kiss from all others prevents me,
And sets all my pulses astir,

And burns on my lips and torments me: "Tis the kiss that I fain would give her.

One kiss for all others requites me,
Although it is never to be,
And sweetens my dreams and invites me:
'Tis the kiss that she dare not give me.

Ah, could it be inine, it were sweeter Than honey bees garner in dream, Though its bliss on my lips were fleeter Than a swallow's dip to the stream.

And yet, thus denied, it can never In the prose of life vanish away; O'er my lips it must hover forever, The sunshine and shade of my day.

THE BROKEN TRYST.

OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES.

gether,

When June was breezy and blue,

I watch in the gray autumnal weather The leaves fall inconstant as you.

If a dead leaf startle behind me,

I think 't is your garment's hem,

The simple faith of shepherds then, And, clasping kindly hand in hand,

Sing, Peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Might I whirl away with them!

"To-day the Prince of Peace is born!"

MY PORTRAIT GALLERY.

OFT round my hall of portraiture I gaze, By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy,

From stainless quarries of deep-buried days.

There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, Your faces glow in more than mortal youth,

Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly,

The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden,

Now for the first time seen in flawless truth.

Ah, never master that drew mortal breath Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death,

Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden!

Thou paintest that which struggled here below

Half understood, or understood for woe, And with a sweet forewarning

Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow

Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning.

This granted, I God's mercy will not blame, For, given thy nearness, nothing is denied.

Dull

Yet

here to claim remembrance were methink..

THE Maple puts her corals on in May, While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling,

To be in tune with what the robins sing, Plastering new log-huts 'mid her branches gray;

But when the Autumn southward turns away,

Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring,

And every leaf, intensely blossoming, Makes the year's sunset pale the set of day.

Youth unprescient, were it only so With trees you plant, and in whose shade reclined,

Thinking their drifting blooms Fate's coldest snow,

You carve dear names upon the faithful rind,

NIGHTWATCHES.

WHILE the slow clock, as they were miser's gold,

Counts and recounts the mornward steps of Time,

The darkness thrills with conscience of each crime

By Death committed, daily grown more bold.

Once more the list of all my wrongs is told,

And ghostly hands stretch to me from my prime

Helpless farewells, as from an alien clime;

For each new loss redoubles all the old. This morn 't was May; the blossoms were astir

With southern wind; but now the boughs are bent

With snow instead of birds, and all things .freeze.

How much of all my past is dumb with her,

And of my future, too, for with her