We watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied--

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed--she had
Another morn than ours.

Oh , snows so pure! oh, peaks so high!
I lift to you a hopeless eye.

I see your icy ramparts drawn
Between the sleepers and the dawn.

I see you, when the sun has set,
Flush with the dying daylight yet.

I see you, passionless and pure,
Above the lightnings stand secure;

But may not climb, for now the hours
Are spring's, and earth a maze of flowers.

And now, 'mid summer's dust and heat,
I stay my steps for childish feet.

And now, when autumn glows, I fear
To lose the harvest of the year.

The Absolutely Abstemious Ass,
who resided in a Barrel, and only lived on
Soda Water and Pickled Cucumbers.

The Bountiful Beetle,
who always carried a Green Umbrella when it didn't rain,
and left it at home when it did.

The Comfortable Confidential Cow,
who sate in her Red Morocco Arm Chair and
toasted her own Bread at the parlour Fire.

The Dolomphious Duck,
who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinner
with a Runcible Spoon.

The Enthusiastic Elephant,
who ferried himself across the water with the

Oh , I once was a lad
Of a single thought.
Melody-mad,
With ears for nought
But the miracles Bach and Beethoven wrought,
When suddenly you,
Out of the blue,
With your formal old master Galuppi, dropped,
And grim-eyed Hugues
Of the mountainous fugues,
And the rampired walls of the marvellous Abt,—
To build me, from Music's far-off strand,
A way to a humaner, dearer shore,—
A bridge to poetry-land.

Then to my soul I swore:
“If poets may win such store
Of music's own highland air,
Yet abide in the common round,

I am ninety years old.
I don't think anymore.
It can't help me.

Who could look at me
lying here
and know what I was?

A woman sobbed in the passage.

O' ER the Steppes rode he, the Cossack,
Vdovà was dwelling there—
“Dobry den! Good day, poor widow,
Is all well? How dost thou fare?

“I but ask a drink of water—
Widow, with thy husband fled,
Wilt thou give it for the asking?”. . . .
“How knew'st thou that he was dead?”

“By thy garden I could tell it—
Sad and lonesome is the sight.
And thy heart is ever grieving:
Tell me then—am I not right?

“In the garden of the widow
Coreopsis blossoms not,
Never blooms a single flower
In so desolate a spot.”
(In the garden of the widow,

Many a long, long year ago,
Nantucket skippers had a plan
Of finding out, though "lying low,"
How near New York their schooners ran.

They greased the lead before it fell,
And then, by sounding through the night,
Knowing the soil that stuck, so well,
They always guessed their reckoning right.

A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim,
Could tell, by tasting, just the spot,
And so below he'd "dowse the glim"--
After, of course, his "something hot."

Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock,
This ancient skipper might be found;

I will dance and wrap myself with drooping veils about me,
Turquoise blue and green and blowing amber—
How their pale, their weightless touch,
Will be delight upon me—
Their dusky colors melting and returning.

I will raise them before me,
I will let them fall from me,
Every swaying movement
Sways them and curves them,
Every swaying movement
Sways them and folds them,
Dropping about me;

Down from my shoulders,
Over my fingers—
Laying their soft touch over my fingers—
Down to my feet drooping and dropping
With grace upon me—

This is my rock
And here I run
To steal the secret of the sun;

This is my rock
And here come I
Before the night has swept the sky;

This is my rock,
This is the place
I meet the evening face to face.

When the soul ages, let the rivers be
All one with the proud sea;
When spirit lichens let the stars go quite
Out of the body of the light;
When aught can sicken, sere, or can decay
That quick and living seed of beauty's womb
Prepare love's tomb,
And with love's form shut up the thousand springs
Of human joy, those things
By whose transcendent force alone we strive
To nobly live.
Do this when spirit ages. While it breathes
And with its beauty wreathes
Perishing towers, laughing at death's hand
Let heaven stand