With what a prodigality of stains,
Is fashioned this last entry and design,
By one aware of cold, approaching rains,—
Who senses, through each iridescent line,
A presence at the shoulder—chills and blights,
Winds that will snuff his letters out like lights.
IN AN OLD BURIAL GROUND
I have imagined ... but I have not known
What swift, recaptured seasons, lost of late,
What long-regretted Aprils yet may wait
For each of these beyond his crypted stone.
Some Springtime that was all too quickly blown,
Some Summer that was roses in his heart,
May wake again in every sweetest part,
And show themselves familiarly his own.
It well may be there are eternal days
For every frailest thing, beyond this door,
Where roses are not ruined any more,
And April with her jonquils stays and stays,
Outlingering walls of granite where they blow ...
I have imagined ... but I do not know.
ENCORE
This old slow music will have never done
With dancers who were graceful long ago;
A sigh returns them, one by ghostly one,
To tunes and measures that they knew—and know.
These lifted faces, floating on a stream,
Are one with other faces that were fair,—
That once were light, and summertime and dream,
And drifted laughter over hall and stair.