* * * * *
So silent doth she come,
Standing here pale and dumb,
With her finger laid on her lips in a warning way;
Her dark eyes looking back,
As if upon her track
And mine, some phantom shape of impending evil lay.
But when I strive to see,
Of what she's warning me,
Cruelly calm, no sign will she deign to love or fears;
Unheeding vow or prayer,
As noiseless as the air,
She glideth into the pallid moonlight and disappears.
SLEEP.
Come to me soft-eyed sleep,
With your ermine sandalled feet;
Press the pain from my troubled brow
With your kisses cool and sweet;
Lull me with slumbrous song,
Song of your clime, the blest,
While on my heavy eyelids
Your dewy fingers rest.
Come with your native flowers,
Heartsease and lotus bloom,
Enwrap my weary senses
With the cloud of their perfume;
For the whispers of thought tire me,
Their constant, dull repeat,
Like low waves throbbing, sobbing,
With endless, endless beat.
THE LADY MAUD.
I sit in the cloud and the darkness
Where I lost you, peerless one;
Your bright face shines upon fairer lands,
Like the dawning of the sun,
And what to you is the rustic youth,
You sometimes smiled upon.
You have roamed through mighty cities,
By the Orient's gleaming sea,
Down the glittering streets of Venice,
And soft-skied Araby:
Life to you has been an anthem,
But a solemn dirge to me.
For everywhere, by Rome's bright hills,
Or by the silvery Rhine,
You win all hearts to you, where'er
Your glancing tresses shine;
But, darling, the love of the many,
Is not a love like mine.