A LONG wet day and now, the twilight hour
Fine, but not golden, delicately gray …
We pace the garden path
Talking: and faint between the words we say
Fall troubled silences of pleasant sound …
I speak of love, and laugh!

The flowers stand drenched and bruised on either hand,
Only the leaves shine softly and seem glad …
And so the light grows less …
We turn: I take your hand … your lips look sad,
As though the rain had also hurt the flower
Of your mouth's loveliness …

Full of rain crystals, the asparagus

A MONG the garden walks of Proserpine,
Love, I will wait for you until your eyes
Are wearied of the sad monotonous skies,
And till you have drained the last cup of life's wine.
You bade me wait since to this love of mine
Might no responsive love within you rise.
I waited long: and now being one who dies,
Go hence to linger at a duskier shrine.

I had no will but yours; I gave to you
My life, albeit for all that I could do
You would not have me call you more than friend.
Of this I am glad — that while we drew life's breath

Ah ! you and I are not so far
From luckless fortune, now it seems,
Sweet lips, for all our foolish dreams
Of joy beneath a favouring star.

Joy was: and fortune changes. Chance
That brought us somehow heart to heart
Now bids us once touch lips and part.
I go to work and you to dance.

Ah, best and dearest love that yet
Made sweeter life's unfriended way,
It must be many a weary day
Ere you and I forget, forget!

Time conquers even a memory,
But this alone he cannot do —
Bring back such love again to you,

O Heart of all the shining day,
The green earth's still Delight,
Thou Freshness in the morning wind,
Thou Silence of the night,
Thou Beauty of our temple-walls,
Thou Strength within the stone, —
What is it we can offer thee
That is not first thine own?

Old memories throng: we think of those
Awhile with us who trod,
Whose hands yet lift within our lives, —
We called them " Gift of God:"
And thine these shinings in our thought,
This eager, love-wrought hope,
This deathless faith they wait and watch

The sultry heaviness of the burning night
Choked us with longing for the future day,
As bathed in sweat and feigning love we lay
Embraced beneath the jet of feeble light.

At length the birds began and their delight
Mocked us. They sang, while we could only pray
For respite as with infinite delay
The skies beyond the chimney-tops grew bright.

The shafts of sunlight entered and the rain
Of kisses ended with the need to feign,
Sundered the arms that strained, the lips that clove.

With useless words we parted. Through the street

— O William! — she cried, — strew no blossoms of spring,
For the new — apparatus — might rust;
But say that a handful of shavings you 'll bring,
And linger to see me combust.

— Oh, promise me, love, by the fire-hole you 'll watch;
And when mourners and stokers convene,
You will see that they light me some solemn, slow match,
And warn them against kerosene.

— It would cheer me to know, ere these rude breezes waft
My essences far to the pole,
That one whom I love will look to the draught,
And have a fond eye on the coal.

Today, grown rich with what I late have won,
Across the dusk I reach my hand to you.
Cold as a leaf long pillowed on a stone
Your hand takes mine, like something strange and new.
So soon grown careless? … No, for in your eyes
A tenderness still lives, half-shy, half-bold …
Then sudden wisdom to my trouble cries:
I know you still my love, but not the old.
That which I loved and won now all is gone;
She was an hour, a moment, a swift mood,—
Vanished forever into deeps unknown,—
And a new creature rules your brain and blood.

A TASTE Francesco Petrarch had
For dialects, and leeks, and verses,
Though Laura was his best-known fad
But Laura loved her Husband (Curses!)

Through twenty long and tragic years
That burned Francesco's soul like acid —
(He melted several Alps with tears) —
Laura remained at home ... quite placid.

She loved her Husband, Laura did:
Please fix that vital fact securely.
When Petrarch called her " Heavenly kid! "

Why dost thou say thou lov'st me now,
And yet proclam'st it is too late,
When bound by folly, or by Fate,
Thou can'st no further grace allow?

Repeat no more that killing Voice,
Thou beauteous Victrice of my heart;
Or find a way to ease my smart,
Maugre thy now repented choice.

'Tis not too late to love, and do
What Love and Nature prompt thee to,
Whilst thus thou tryumph'st in thy prime;

Thou may'st discreetly love, and use
Those Pleasures thou did'st once refuse:
But to profess it were a Crime.

How shall I know myself when I have come
To that strange land beyond the sea of death,
Ere the first voice that speaks with heavenly breath
Shall, out of all the sweet and murmurous hum,
Call me by name? How know ere I am known
That I am he who once in other spheres
Drank to the lees so many golden years
And called so many loving hearts my own?
Doubtless, my God, in ways I cannot guess,
Thou wilt reveal me to my doubting sense;
But, O my love, the sign that most shall bless,
And bring the swiftest, surest confidence,