English

A YOUNG girl's perfect ringing silvery laugh;
The strange slow sullen plunge of waves that break;
The ripple of leafage which the June winds shake;
The lisp of rivers which the breezes quaff;
The flapping of the flag around its staff;
The subtle hissing of the sinuous snake;
The sighing of reeds upon the mountain-lake;
The salmon's fierce splash, bleeding from the gaff; —
The cheer of legions thundering through the breach;
The songs of children, and their thoughtless glee;
A woman's heartfelt moan of dull despair;

My spirit revelled in a green arcade
And felt the motion and the bloom of flowers, —
The feathery cool despondence of the shade,
The joy of rivulets in summer showers,
And the inner sense of passion's secret bowers:
And then there came a maiden and she said,
" I dwell beyond the immortal blue-tipped towers
And valleys tenanted by the extreme dead
Where the perpetual swift sun's rays are red,
And, long before the mystery of birth,
These eyes that shine like emeralds in my head

O GIRL who turnest down the street,
Over-slow yet over-fleet,
Half-seen,
Thy face was fair and soft and sweet
I ween!

Never through all eternity
Shall I thy full true beauty see:
Thou art lost
For ever now alas! to me,
Crowd-tost.

It is so strange and sad to think
That just one sudden broken link
Snaps all.
Our dreams are light-beams. Through a chink
They crawl:

Then something passes and the light
Is quenched, and all again is night.
So now

Hold thou thy loved one through the summer night;
Soon 'twill be light;
The armies of the stars will own defeat:
The sun will frighten love from out the skies,
With flaming eyes:
But yet the night was sweet!

The velvet lips that rested once on thine,
With touch divine,
Turn elsewhere. Will love pause, though tears entreat?
Through all time, never! — Yet in days gone by
(Yes, one swift sigh!)
Those lips to thee were sweet.

One hour of rapture, and the sun's warm breath;
Then sunless death;

I.

I F God be dead, and life be void
Of hope that lifted us and buoyed, —
If heaven no more in front may shine, —
Yet have we love's own wreaths to twine!

If all be passed and over soon,
And soulless gleam the stars and moon,
And heartless the triumphant sun, —
Yet have we toil, till toil is done!

If ne'er the dreams that once so bright
Laughed golden-winged in April light
A heavenly fair reward shall find, —
Yet have we rose-breath on the wind!

If now beside the rush-fringed stream

A THOUSAND gifts life brings us,
And some are passing fair:
What perfect flowers it flings us
When June's breath scents the air!
Yes, Life begins with pleasure:
The year begins with glee;
With golden blossom-treasure
And stormless azure sea.

Then how the prospect darkens: —
Hearts fail us, and betray;
Death glides amid our loved ones, —
Steals one by one away:
Life, which began in glory,
Grows sombre towards its close,
For old age chills our pleasures
As autumn chills the rose.

Old poems lay before me, — and I knew
Again the floating dreams of early days
Which led me captive underneath the blaze
Of summer, when the sea was wide and blue
In front, — the cliff beneath me, — and when you
Walked as a queen along those windy ways,
And held towards me a sweet crown of bays
Wet with Youth's crystal sinless globes of dew.

Now for the morning the calm sunset shines.
Before me, — and the sun's remorseless eye
Is red between tall pillars of black pines
Wherethrough I have to travel by and bye;

What has been, is . I have lost my rose, and yet
I know that, if a rose-bloom God there be,
That rose of his sweet nurture I shall see
And with the former love my lids be wet, —
And that the wings of passion-fed regret
Shall part, and glisten into air, and flee; —
And that she shall be tender unto me,
And that these eyes shall meet the eyes I met
On that far seashore in the sweet old days

The strange relief to God when he at last
Touches the walls of empery supreme!
When no stars glitter through a golden dream
But God thanks God that he has made the past.
The giant rest to God when through the vast
No more white clouds with wings unearthly gleam:
When no more moons or suns or comets stream
Before his gaze half loving, half aghast.

To touch the walls of his own empire: — Rest
Eternal to the heart that moulded all.
To sleep at last within his golden hall,
Pillowed on some divinely loving breast:

" THE rose-tree longs for its beautiful rose,
And sighs till its bloom is there:
So life will never attain repose
Till love its exquisite blossom blows
In the beautiful scented air. "
These dream-sweet words from a poet's page
A girl to her mother read;
And the young girl smiled, while the eyes of age
Watched softly the fair gold head.

But the mother's eyes were dim with tears,
While the daughter's eyes were gay;
For the mother thought of the long-past years,
And of dead sweet hopes, and of sighs and fears,