SOLITUDE
To live alone where man nor beast e'er stood,
Ten-thousand miles beyond the site of home;
To walk at night the catacombs of Rome,
Or dwell within some deep death-haunted wood;
To feel like Bonaparte with power endued,
Yet doomed to sleep beneath the starry dome,
And listen to the ocean chafe and foam,—
Not this, not all of these, is solitude.
But oh, to be alone within the hive
Of teeming life, where thousands live and move
And have their shallow beings,—there to strive
With doubt and faith, and feel the soul expand
Beyond the utmost reach of those we love,
And know that they can never understand.
LOVE'S TRIUMPH
To Hart's Triumph of Chastity
(destroyed by fire)
Ah, shattered form, thy beauty, chaste as frost,
Once held in thrall the heart of lord and swain.
While Cupid sped his strongest shafts in vain
Thou didst not dream the price thy triumph cost,
Or know thy charm would be forever lost,
When Time with jealous wind or flood should stain
Thy snowy brow in grime or part in twain
Thy marble heart in fervent holocaust!
Thy spell is gone; but oh, the maid whose heart
Was riven by the little wing-ed god
That dipped his arrow in the scarlet stream
Of my own life, shall triumph over Art
And Time,—my love, whose ardent pulsing blood
Shall quicken other lives and reign supreme!