Long are the days, and three times long the nights.
The weary hours are a heavy chain
Upon the feet of all Earth's dear delights,
Holding them ever prisoners to pain.
What shall beguile me to believe again
In hope, that faith within her parable writes
Of life, care reads with eyes whose tear-drops stain?
Shall such assist me to subdue the heights?
Long is the night, and over long the day.—
The burden of all being!—is it worse
Or better, lo! that they who toil and pray
May win not more than they who toil and curse?
A little sleep, a little love, ah me!
And the slow weigh up the soul's Calvary!

CONTENTS

Page
THE DREAMER[1]
QUIET[2]
UNQUALIFIED[3]
UNENCOURAGED ASPIRATION[3]
THE WOOD[4]
WOOD NOTES[5]
SUCCESS[7]
SONG[7]
THE OLD SPRING[8]
HILLS OF THE WEST[10]
FLOWERS[11]
SECOND SIGHT[12]
DEAD SEA FRUIT[13]
THE WOOD WITCH[14]
AT SUNSET[16]
MAY[17]
THE WIND OF SPRING[18]
INTERPRETED[19]
THE WILLOW BOTTOM[20]
THE OLD BARN[22]
CLEARING[23]
REQUIEM[25]
AT LAST[26]
A DARK DAY[27]
FALL[28]
UNDERTONE[29]
CONCLUSION[30]
MONOCHROMES[32]
DAYS AND DAYS[34]
DROUTH IN AUTUMN[35]
MID-WINTER[36]
COLD[37]
IN WINTER[38]
ON THE FARM[39]
PATHS[41]
A SONG IN SEASON[43]
APART[44]
FAËRY MORRIS[45]
THE WORLD'S DESIRE[46]
THE UNATTAINABLE[47]
REMEMBERED[51]
THE SEA SPIRIT[52]
A DREAM SHAPE[53]
THE VAMPIRE[54]
WILL-O'-THE-WISP[56]
THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN[57]
THE WERE-WOLF[59]
THE TROGLODYTE[62]
THE CITY OF DARKNESS[63]
TRANSMUTATION[65]

UNDERTONES

THE DREAMER

Even as a child he loved to thrid the bowers,
And mark the loafing sunlight's lazy laugh;
Or, on each season, spell the epitaph
Of its dead months repeated in their flowers;
Or list the music of the strolling showers,
Whose vagabond notes strummed through a twinkling staff;
Or read the day's delivered monograph
Through all the chapters of its dædal hours.
Still with the same child-faith and child-regard
He looks on Nature, hearing, at her heart,
The beautiful beat out the time and place,
Whereby no lesson of this life is hard,
No struggle vain of science or of art,
That dies with failure written on its face.