The wind wailed low like a woman weeping;
Deeper and darker the dense gloom grew.
And, oh! for the old, sweet nights of sleeping,
When dreams were happy, and love was true.
Before the stars from heaven went out
In a sudden blackness of dread and doubt.
The wind wailed loud, like a madman shrieking,
And I said to my heart, ‘Oh! vain, vain strife;
We cannot forget, and the peace we are seeking
Can only be won at the end of life.
For see! like a lurid and living spark
The eyes of the tiger shine through the dark.’
The wind sighed low like a sick man dying,
And the dawn crept silently over the hill.
And I said, ‘O heart! there is no use trying,
We must remember, and love on still.’
And the tiger, appeased with its midnight feast,
Fled as the dawn rose red in the East.
IF ONE SHOULD DIVE DEEP
Once more on the beach with the shifting clouds o’er me
(Like the friends of a day),
And the sea all unchanged, like a true friend before me,
How the years flow away,
How the summers go by.
The shifting clouds o’er me, the shifting sands under;
Why need it seem strange,
Why need I feel bitter, and why should I wonder
That hearts, too, should change
As the summers go by.
Down here is the path where we wandered together,
’Neath the midsummer moon.
Her love was sweet as the sweet summer weather,
And left us as soon,
And the summers go by.
The bathers laugh loud in the surf over yonder.
If one should dive deep,
And rise not—no more need he suffer or ponder
O’er losses, or weep,
But sink low and sleep
While the summers go by.
TWO
As I sat in my opera box last night
In a glimmer of gems and a blaze of light,
And smiling that all might see,
This curious thought came all unsought—
That there were two of me.