The rose she gathers is invisible,
But ah! its fragrance on the visioned air—
The scent of Paphian flowers warm and fair;
The breath of blossoms delicate and chill,
By Dian tended on her vestal hill,
And soul of that wan orchid of despair
Found by Persephone, when, unaware,
She bent to pluck, and hell and heaven grew still.
Oh! in what lily’s deep and splendid cup
Shall ever evening dryads hope to find
So marvellous a nectar of delight—
In valleys of enchantment gathered up
By hesitating spirits of the wind,
And borne in rapture to the lips of Night?
THE MUSIC OF SLEEP
What crown of dews and opals Morning wore
I knew not, taken in the toils of Sleep;
For mine it was the ways profound to keep
Where seas of dream break on a phantom shore
To mysteries of music evermore.
There shone no star on headland nor on steep,
And past the vague horizon of that deep
On isles unknown I heard its billows roar.
Eastward the everlasting fountains welled
Till o’er my rest the dayspring’s golden tide
On hills that are and nearer seas was whirled;
But sealed within my haunted brows I held
The forms that pass, the shadows that abide,
And music of the soul’s dim under-world.
DUTY
White on its road we saw her chariot shine,
And she, unturning, passed with lifted gaze,
As Pleasure stood in arrogant amaze
And looked in question on his scornéd wine;
Love from her steeds leapt back with frightened eyne,
Indignant, splendid, and the hostile blaze
Of Pain’s effulgence from his hidden ways
Seemed but her beacon to a goal divine.
Then fell intensest shadow on her path,
Whereat one cried, “Behold! the sword of Death!
Shall mortal face unfaltering the Wrath?”
And silence held our multitude. But she
Passed on as to a thing of spectral breath,—
A fantasy that was not nor could be.
THE ECHO AND THE QUEST
Now, as the west is red, O birds!
My clumsy arts you bring to naught:
A victim of the curse of thought,
I tell its pain in trammeling words—