Thou art too bright for guile, too young for tears,
And thou wilt live to be too strong for Time;
For he may mock thee with his furrowed frowns,
But thou wilt grow in calm throughout the years,
Cinctured with peace and crowned with power sublime,
The maiden queen of all the towered towns.
SONG
Here’s the last rose,
And the end of June,
With the tulips gone
And the lilacs strewn;
A light wind blows
From the golden west,
The bird is charmed
To her secret nest:
Here’s the last rose—
In the violet sky
A great star shines,
The gnats are drawn
To the purple pines;
On the magic lawn
A shadow flows
From the summer moon:
Here’s the last rose,
And the end of the tune.
NIGHT AND THE PINES
Here in the pine shade is the nest of night,
Lined deep with shadows, odorous and dim,
And here he stays his sweeping flight,
Here where the strongest wind is lulled for him,
He lingers brooding until dawn,
While all the trembling stars move on and on.
Under the cliff there drops a lonely fall,
Deep and half heard its thunder lifts and booms;
Afar the loons with eerie call
Haunt all the bays, and breaking through the glooms
Upfloats that cry of light despair,
As if a demon laughed upon the air.
A raven croaks from out his ebon sleep,
When a brown cone falls near him through the dark;
And when the radiant meteors sweep
Afar within the larches wakes the lark;
The wind moves on the cedar hill,
Tossing the weird cry of the whip-poor-will.
Sometimes a titan wind, slumbrous and hushed,
Takes the dark grove within his swinging power;
And like a cradle softly pushed,
The shade sways slowly for a lulling hour;
While through the cavern sweeps a cry,
A Sibyl with her secret prophecy.