THE CHERRY-SNOWS
The cherry-snows are falling now;
Down from the blossom-clouded sky
Of zephyr-troubled twig and bough,
In widely settling whirls they fly.
The orchard earth, unclothed and brown,
Is wintry-hued with petals bright;
E'en as the snow they glimmer down;
Brief as the snow's their stainless white.
FAIRY LANTERNS
'Tis said these blossom-lanterns light
The elves upon their midnight way;
That fairy toil and elfin play
Receive their beams of magic white.
I marvel not if it be true;
I know this flower has lighted me
Nearer to Beauty's mystery,
And past the veils of secrets new.
NIRVANA
Poised as a god whose lone, detachèd post,
An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marks
Of finite years, and those unvaried darks
That veil Eternity, I saw the host
Of worlds and suns, swept from the furthermost
Of night—confusion as of dust with sparks—
Whirl tow'rd the opposing brink; as one who harks
Some warning trumpet, Time, a withered ghost,
Fled with them; disunited orbs that late
Were atoms of the universal frame,
They passed to some eternal fragment-heap.
And, lo, the gods, from space discorporate,
Who were its life and vital spirit, came,
Drawn outward by the vampire-lips of Sleep!