She sees no roses darkling,
No stately hollyhocks dim;
She is only thinking and dreaming
The garden, the night, and him,
The unlit windows behind her,
The timeless dial-stone,
The trees, and the moon, and the shadows
A hundred years agone!
'Tis a night for a ghostly lover
To haunt the best-loved spot:
Is he come in his dreams to this garden?
I gaze, but I see him not.
VII.
I will not look on her nearer,
My heart would be torn in twain;
From my eyes the garden would vanish
In the falling of their rain.
I will not look on a sorrow
That darkens into despair,
On the surge of a heart that cannot
Yet cannot cease to bear.
My soul to hers would be calling:
She would hear no word it said!
If I cried aloud in the stillness
She would never turn her head!
She is dreaming the sky above her,
She is dreaming the earth below:—
This night she lost her lover
A hundred years ago.
A NOONDAY MELODY.
Everything goes to its rest;
The hills are asleep in the noon;
And life is as still in its nest
As the moon when she looks on a moon
In the depth of a calm river's breast
As it steals through a midnight in June.