I HAVE strayed from silent places,
Where the days are dreaming always;
And fair summer lies a-dying,
Roses withered on her breast.
I have stolen all her beauty,
All her softness, all her sweetness;
In her robe of folden sunshine
I am drest.
I will breathe a mist about me
Lest you see my face too clearly,
Lest you follow me too boldly
I will silence every song.
Through the haze and through the silence
You will know that I am passing;
When you break the spell that holds you,
I am gone!
The Unchanged
IF we could salvage Babylon
From times’s grim heap of dust and bones;
If we could charm cool waters back
To sing against her thirsty stones;
If, on a day,
We two should stray
Down some long, Babylonian way—
Perhaps the strangest sight of all
Would be the street boys playing ball.
If through Pompeii’s agelong night
A yellow sun again might shine,
And little, sea-born breezes lift
The hair of lovers sipping wine,
If, in some fair,
Dim temple there,
We watched Pompeii come to prayer—
Not the strange altar would surprise
But strangeness of familiar eyes!
Ay, should our magic straightly wake
Atlantis from her sea-rocked sleep
And we on some Processional
Look down where dancing maidens leap,
If one flushed maid
Beside us stayed
To tie more firm her loosened braid—
Would not the shaking wonder be
To find her just like you and me?
Indifference
A BIRD, a wild-flower and a tree—
I care for them, not they for me.
I see all heaven in a pool—
But the frog there takes me for a fool.
To this dead thrush a tear I gave—
All Spring shall sing above my grave,