What more can my heart desire?
Has it lost the power to be grateful?
Is it only a burnt-out fire,
Whose ashes are dull and hateful?
Yet still to itself it doth say,
‘I should have loved far better
To have found, coming in to-day,
The merest scrap of a letter.’
IN TIME OF SORROW
Despair is in the suns that shine,
And in the rains that fall,
This sad forsaken soul of mine
Is weary of them all.
They fall and shine on alien streets
From those I love and know.
I cannot hear amid the heats
The North Sea’s freshening flow
The people hurry up and down,
Like ghosts that cannot lie;
And wandering through the phantom town
The weariest ghost am I.
A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE—FROM VICTOR HUGO
If a pleasant lawn there grow
By the showers caressed,
Where in all the seasons blow
Flowers gaily dressed,
Where by handfuls one may win
Lilies, woodbine, jessamine,
I will make a path therein
For thy feet to rest.
If there live in honour’s sway
An all-loving breast
Whose devotion cannot stray,
Never gloom-oppressed—
If this noble breast still wake
For a worthy motive’s sake,
There a pillow I will make
For thy head to rest.
If there be a dream of love,
Dream that God has blest,
Yielding daily treasure-trove
Of delightful zest,
With the scent of roses filled,
With the soul’s communion thrilled,
There, oh! there a nest I’ll build
For thy heart to rest.