THE LAST OF SUMMER
The opal afternoon
Is cool, and very still.
A wash of tawny air,
Sea-green that melts to gold,
Bathes all the skyline, hill by hill.
Out of the black-topped pinelands
A black crow calls,
And the year seems old!
A woman from a doorway sings,
And from the valley-slope a sheep-dog barks,
And through the umber woods the echo falls.
Then silence on the still world lies,
And faint and far the birds fly south,
And behind the dark pines drops the sun,
And a small wind wakes and sighs,
And Summer, see, is done!
AT CHARING-CROSS
Alone amid the Rockies I have stood;
Alone across the prairie's midnight calm
Full often I have fared
And faced the hushed infinity of night;
Alone I have hung poised
Between a quietly heaving sea
And quieter sky,
Aching with isolation absolute;
And in Death's Valley I have walked alone
And sought in vain for some appeasing sign
Of life or movement,
While over-desolate my heart called out
For some befriending face
Or some assuaging voice!
But never on my soul has weighed
Such loneliness as this,
As here amid the seething London tides
I look upon these ghosts that come and go,
These swarming restless souls innumerable,
Who through their million-footed dirge of unconcern
Must know and nurse the thought of kindred ghosts
As lonely as themselves,
Or else go mad with it!
PRESCIENCE
I
"The sting of it all," you said, as you stooped low over your roses,
"The worst of it is, when I think of Death,
That Spring by Spring the Earth shall still be beautiful,
And Summer by Summer be lovely again,
—And I shall be gone!"