O trees! so vast, so calm!
Softly ye lay
On heart and mind today
The unpurchaseable balm.
Ere yet the wind can cease,
Your mighty sigh
Is spirit of the sky—
Half sorrow and half peace.
Mourn ye your brothers slain,
That now afar
From hush and dews and star
Man barters for his gain?
Mourn them with all your boughs,
For I must mourn,
In seasons yet unborn,
The cares that they will house.
MUSIC AT DUSK
O Twilight, Twilight! evermore to hear
The wounded viols pleading to thy heart!
To dream we watch thy purple wings depart;
To wake, and know thy presence alway near!
What dost thou on the pathway of the sun?
Abide thy sister Night, while strains so pure
Make heaven and all its beauty seem too sure,
And all too certain her oblivion.
One star awakes to turn thee from the south.
Oh, linger in the shadows thou hast drawn,
Ere Night cast dew before the feet of Dawn,
Or Silence lay her kiss on Music’s mouth!
THE TIDES OF CHANGE
Wherewith is Beauty fashioned? Canst thou deem
Her evanescent roses bourgeon save
Within the sunlight tender on her grave?
Awake no winds but bear her dust, a gleam
In morning’s prophecy or sunset’s dream;
And every cry that ever Sirens gave
From islands mournful with the quiring wave
Was echo of a music once supreme.