English

" Here lieth love. " Deep lettered on a stone
Are these few words, but never name and date
To say what heart would so commemorate
A dear dead love, or by what hand were strewn
The withered roses. Hither, thither blown,
A willow's branches quiver with a freight
Of melody that seems articulate;
But men who listen merely catch a moan —
" Here lieth love. "

Mine are the roses and the dead love there.
But silence! breathe no names; it were not meet
That she should know love perished from despair

In the white future, in the coming years,
We will forget our sorrow and our woe:
We will forget these death-extorted tears.
Above yon open grave the turf will grow,
And flowers hide the failures and the fears
Of long ago.

In the white future, in the unborn days,
Warm winds will steal the clouds that hide the sun.
Over the ruins roughening our ways,
Lichen in green luxuriance will run,
And memory will only sing the praise
Of battles won.

In the dim future, when the spray is blown

God's hand had made her face surpassing fair:
In love had lingered over every line.
Its purity made Passion kneel in prayer;
The starry eyes beneath the midnight hair
Shone with a glory that was half divine.

Men, gazing, fancied that an aureole
Circled the whiteness of her perfect brow;
And a new discontent was in their soul,
For something holy from her presence stole,
Drawing them nearer God, they knew not how.

How far thro' space and time the soul may go!
I had a dream as of a serpent's tongue
That darted venomously to and fro.
I had a vision of the sword of flame
That guarded Eden when the world was young,
And shed a lurid light on Adam's shame.

I saw it animate with God's great Will,
No hand was on the hilt to make it flash;
Yet evermore its shriek, more piercing shrill
Than a cicala's chirrup, clove the air;
And all day long I saw it poise and dash,
A giant meteor with golden hair.

I.

She hath but passed to heaven. As if from sleep,
Sleep soft and peaceful, she awoke to find
Earth with its pangs and tears all left behind;
Rose her freed spirit up the airy steep;
On steady wing, beyond where pale stars keep
Their watch o'er mortal griefs, she upward sped,
Not lonely, but by sister spirits led,
To that dear home where eyes do never weep:

Strange rapture thrilled her there; and straight her note

Next to even
the winter chrysanthemums —
fresh radish " .

Hidden 'mong the forest trees,
Chant thy liquid melodies,
Passionate nightingale!
Sing, till night's ten thousand eyes
Fade and fail,
Dim and pale,
As thou sang'st in Paradise
Long ago.
Sing in tender tremolo,
Soft and slow,
Sad and low.
Sing a deep adagio,
For my heart is full of woe,
And my eyes are full of tears
With the thought of bygone years.
Tremolo,
Sad and slow.

The man in the room next to mine
Has got the same complaint as I
When I wake in the night I hear him turning
And then he coughs
And I cough
And he coughs again —
This goes on for a long time —
Until I feel we are like two roosters
Calling to each other at false dawn
From far away hidden farms

I see my Lord, the pure, the meek, the lowly,
 Along the mournful way in sadness tread;
The thorns are on his brow, and He—the Holy,
 Bearing his cross, to Calvary is led!

Silent He moveth on, all uncomplaining,
 Though wearily his grief and burden press;
And foes—nor shame, nor pity now restraining—
 With scoff and jeering mock his deep distress.

'Tis hell's dark hour; yet calm himself resigning,
Even as a lamb that goeth to be slain;
The wine-press lone he treadeth unrepining,

This little seed of life and love,
Just lent us for a day,
Came like a blessing from above,—
Passed like a dream away.

And when we garnered in the earth
The foison that was ours,
We felt that burial was but birth
To spirits, as to flowers.

And still that benediction stays,
Although its angel passed:
Dear God! thy ways, if bitter ways,
We learn to love at last.

But for the dream,—it broke indeed,
Yet still great comfort gives:
What was a dream is now our creed,—