I lie alone under the boughs of the trees;
They drip clear water,
And the rain dances about me
In bright flashes like little stars.
The trees are thick and lowering;
The night is very black
And there is no wind;
Only the darkness that shuts out the wide, cool sky.

There is fear at my heart,
Fear that closes about me like the night,
Fear that comes in little quick flashes
Like the drops of rain.

Is it of the wide still night
That I am fearful. . . .
(O dark, starless and full of silence!)

Only Love is real,
Life is a dream and I as a dream pass by.

My fellow-creatures
Are marionettes that swing thro' space;

Like gyrating figures
They pass in a pageant of myriad color;

Even as I, too, pass
Moved by the unseen strings that shift the scene.

And I know not why
There is all this weeping and laughter upon earth.

All things are but shadows,
Life is a dream and I as a dream pass by.

Only Love is real,
Only the face of Love as it lies on my heart.

When I am dead,
Bury me with the one I love,
With my head
On his bosom, and my heart
On his heart;
Let green grasses spring above.
(Nevermore, Beloved, to part!)

When I am dead,
Bury me with the one I love,
Spirit-wed
In sweet trust,
Bone with bone and dust with dust,
Let green grasses spring above.
(Nevermore, Beloved, to part!)

I sang, " O, Love, set me free —
As a bird on the air
My heart would be,
Sailing afar where the skies are fair,
Thro' the endless years. "

But when Love left,
And I walked alone,
I said bereft:
" Come back, my own,
Give me my tears! "

Must
The gold of this hair
Become dust,
And this white breast,
Soft like the nest
Of a dove,
Fade on air?
Must
These sweet finger-tips,
Made
For love,
And these rose lips,
Fade
To dust?
How could such beauty be
To perish utterly. . . .

Love took the light,
And went away;
I walk in darkness
Day by day.

And yet I know,
Though it be far,
My path winds somewhere

I will go out and forget love and be as a bird in the sky —
Free with the soaring breezes and the clouds that wander by;
(I will go out and forget love and be as a bird in the sky!)

I will go out in the wide lands, alone in endless space,
Where the earth is a-blaze with splendor, and I kneel in the sun's embrace;
(I will go out in the wide lands alone in endless space.)

I will go out and forget love as the wild wind in the sky,
And be as a bird without bourne or kin or aught to hold me by —
(I will go out and forget love as the wild wind in the sky!)

Love never is too late; it sums,
Within itself, all that is lasting gain,
And, or at morn or midnight, comes
With blessings in its train.

We tarry, slow to give, alas!
But though delayed, love never is too late—
Love that has power beyond the grave to pass
And enter Heaven's gate!

Why does great beauty waken in the soul,
Together with the pleasure it inspires,
Sadness and inaccessible desires?—
Why, in our joy anticipating dole,
Ask we for lovely things a lasting goal,
Though knowing well their destiny requires
That, wasted and consumed by their own fires,
They pay on earth, full soon, Death's heavy toll?

Nay, love! The seed may fail within the sod,
But beauty fails not. Though it seem to die,
It lights a quenchless torch in Hades' portal:
A gift benignant as a smile of God.

Think not of love as of a debt —
Due or in May or in December!
Nay, rather, for a time, forget;
Life always helps us to remember!

A child whom harmless toys beguile
To loiter for a little while,
Put heart into your play, and then,
When you are tired — come home again!

Fair, yet how fragile, pleasure's rose! —
How vain the toil to make it stronger!
It blooms — it withers, — but love knows
A sweeter blossom that lives longer!