THA

HAT was I, you heard last night When there rose no moon at all, Nor, to pierce the strained and tight Tent of heaven, a planet small: Life was dead, and so was light.

Not a twinkle from the fly,

Not a glimmer from the worm. When the crickets stopped their cry, When the owls forbore a term, You heard music; that was I.

Earth turned in her sleep with pain,
Sultrily suspired for proof:

In at heaven and out again,

Lightning! - where it broke the roof, Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

A SERENADE AT THE VILLA.

What they could my words expressed,

O my love, my all, my one!
Singing helped the verses best,
And when singing's best was done,
To my lute I left the rest.

So wore night; the east was gray,

White the broad-faced hemlock flowers; Soon would come another day;

Ere its first of heavy hours

Found me, I had past away.

What became of all the hopes,

Words and song and lute as well?

Say, this struck you,

-"When life gropes

Feebly for the path where fell Light last on the evening slopes,

"When no moon succeeds the sun,

Nor can pierce the midnight's tent

Any star, the smallest one,

While some drops, where lightning went, Show the final storm begun,

61

Shall another voice avail,

That shape be where those are not?

"Has some plague a longer lease
Proffering its help uncouth?

Can't one even die in peace?

As one shuts one's eyes on youth,
Is that face the last one sees?"

O, how dark your villa was,
Windows fast and obdurate!
How the garden grudged me grass
Where I stood, the iron gate
Ground its teeth to let me pass!

B

EVELYN HOPE.

EAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass.

Little has yet been changed, I think, — The shutters are shut, no light may pass

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name,

It was not her time to love: beside,

Her life had many a hope and aim,

Duties enough and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir,

--

Till God's hand beckoned unawares,

And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew,
And just because I was thrice as old,

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,

Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love,

I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few, Much is to learn and much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium's red, -
And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;

Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me,
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;

My heart seemed full as it could hold, —

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. I will give you this leaf to keep,

So, hush,

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.

There, that is our secret! go to sleep;

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

Α

MY STAR.

LL that I know

A of a certain star,

Is, it can throw

(Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue,

Till my friends have said

They would fain see, too,

My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird, like a flower, hangs furled; They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world?

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.