O IS it Love or is it Fame,
This thing for which I sigh?
Or has it then no earthly name
For men to call it by?
I know not what can ease my pains,
Nor what it is I wish;
The passion at my heart-strings strains
Like a tiger in a leash.
In the Nower.
TO J. DE P.
DEEP in the grass outstretched I lie,
Motionless on the hill;
Above me is a cloudless sky,
Around me all is still:
There is no breath, no sound, no stir,
The drowsy peace to break;
I close my tired eyes—it were
So simple not to wake.
The End of the Day.
TO B. T.
DEAD-tired, dog-tired, as the vivid day
Fails and slackens and fades away.—
The sky that was so blue before
With sudden clouds is shrouded o’er.
Swiftly, stilly the mists uprise,
Till blurred and grey the landscape lies.
* * * * * *
All day we have plied the oar; all day
Eager and keen have said our say
On life and death, on love and art,
On good or ill at Nature’s heart.
Now, grown so tired, we scarce can lift
The lazy oars, but onward drift.
And the silence is only stirred
Here and there by a broken word.
* * * * * *
O, sweeter far than strain and stress
Is the slow, creeping weariness.
And better far than thought I find
The drowsy blankness of the mind.
More than all joys of soul or sense
Is this divine indifference;
Where grief a shadow grows to be,
And peace a possibility.
