From all sweet art, and out of all ‘old rhyme,’
Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me;
The shadows of the beauty of all time,
Carven and sung, are only shapes of thee;
Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear
Shall life or death bring all thy being near?
LOST IN HADES.
I dreamed that somewhere in the shadowy place,
Grief of farewell unspoken was forgot
In welcome, and regret remembered not;
And hopeless prayer accomplished turned to praise
On lips that had been songless many days;
Hope had no more to hope for, and desire
And dread were overpast, in white attire
New born we walked among the new world’s ways.
Then from the press of shades a spirit threw
Towards me such apples as these gardens bear;
And turning, I was ‘ware of her, and knew
And followed her fleet voice and flying hair,—
Followed, and found her not, and seeking you
I found you never, dearest, anywhere.
A STAR IN THE NIGHT.
The perfect piteous beauty of thy face,
Is like a star the dawning drives away;
Mine eyes may never see in the bright day
Thy pallid halo, thy supernal grace:
But in the night from forth the silent place
Thou comest, dim in dreams, as doth a stray
Star of the starry flock that in the grey
Is seen, and lost, and seen a moment’s space.
And as the earth at night turns to a star,
Loved long ago, and dearer than the sun,
So in the spiritual place afar,
At night our souls are mingled and made one,
And wait till one night fall, and one dawn rise,
That brings no noon too splendid for your eyes.
A SUNSET ON YARROW.
The wind and the day had lived together,
They died together, and far away
Spoke farewell in the sultry weather,
Out of the sunset, over the heather,
The dying wind and the dying day.
Far in the south, the summer levin
Flushed, a flame in the grey soft air:
We seemed to look on the hills of heaven;
You saw within, but to me ’twas given
To see your face, as an angel’s, there.