A butterfly,
The last to die,
Droops heavily by,
Weighed down with torpor:
The air grows sharper:
And the wind in the trees, like some sad harper,
Sits and sorrows with sigh on sigh.
The far crows call;
The acorns fall;
And over all
The Autumn raises
Dun mists and hazes,
Through which her soul, it seemeth, gazes
On ghosts and dreams in carnival.
The end is near:
The dying Year
Leans low to hear
Her own heart breaking,
And Beauty taking
Her flight, and all her dreams forsaking
Her soul, bowed down ’mid the sad and sere.
AUBADE
Awake! the Dawn is on the hills!
Behold, at her cool throat a rose,
Blue-eyed and beautiful she goes,
Leaving her steps in daffodils.—
Awake! arise! and let me see
Thine eyes, whose deeps epitomize
All dawns that were or are to be,
O love, all Heaven in thine eyes!—
Awake! arise! come down to me!
Behold! the Dawn is up: behold!
How all the birds around her float,
Wild rills of music, note on note,
Spilling the air with mellow gold.—
Arise! awake! and, drawing near,
Let me but hear thee and rejoice!
Thou, who bear’st captive, sweet and clear,
All song, O love, within thy voice!
Arise! awake! and let me hear!
See, where she comes, with limbs of day, The Dawn! with wild-rose hands and feet,
Within whose veins the sunbeams beat,
And laughters meet of wind and ray.
Arise! come down! and, heart to heart,
Love, let me clasp in thee all these—
The sunbeam, of which thou art part,
And all the rapture of the breeze!—
Arise! come down! loved that thou art!
WOMAN’S LOVE
Sweet lies! the sweetest ever heard,
To her he said:
Her heart remembers every word
Now he is dead.
I ask:—“If thus his lies can make
Your young heart grieve for his false sake,
Had he been true what had you done,
For true love’s sake?"—
“Upon his grave there in the sun,
Avoided now of all—but one,
I’d lay my heart with all its ache,
And let it break, and let it break.”