So long it is since Spring, the skylark waking
Heard her own praises in his perfect strain;
Low hang the clouds, the sad year’s heart is breaking,
And mine, my heart—and, over all, the rain.
OUT OF HOPE
If through the rain and wind along the street,
Where the wet stone reflects the flickering gas,
Some weeping autumn night your wandering feet,
Lost in a lonely world, should chance to pass;
If, passing many doors that welcomed you
When robes of good renown your dear name wore,
Your feet again, as once they used to do,
Paused at my door,—
Should I shut fast my heart for the old ill,
The old wrong done, the sorrow and the sin?
Or—only knowing that I love you still—
Should I throw wide the door and let you in?
Come—with your sins—my tears shall wash them all,
The heart you broke still waits to be your home.
Yet if you came.... Oh! lost beyond recall
You never more will come.
HAUNTED
The house is haunted; when the little feet
Go pattering about it in their play,
I tremble lest the little one should meet
The ghosts that haunt the happy night and day.
And yet I think they only come to me;
They come through night of ease and pleasant day
To whisper of the torment that must be
If I some day should be, alas! as they.
And when the child is lying warm asleep,
The ghosts draw back the curtain of my bed,
And past them through the dreadful dark I creep,
Clasp close the child, and so am comforted.