I SIT alone and watch the cinders glare,
Or hear the pine-logs crackling sharp and low.
I wait him still; he went not long ago,
Humming a tune, his cigarette aflare.
He was called out by some most grave affair;
His friends, on cards intent, would have it so;
Or some new singer’s style he fain would know,
Who with false graces mars a grand old air.
And for such things as these he stays away,
Till midnight passes, and, at one, the bell
Booms from the neighbouring church its single flight;
Then gaily he returns, and half in play
Kisses me lightly, asks if I am well,
And never dreams that I have wept all night.
G. A. Greene.
WHEN THE LEAVES FALL IN AUTUMN.
From the Italian of Lorenzo Stecchetti.
WHEN the leaves fall in autumn, and you go
To seek the cross that marks my lonely grave,
In that far corner where they laid me low
The nodding wild-flowers o’er my bones shall wave.
Oh, pluck you then, to deck your golden hair,
The flowers born of my heart which blossom there:
They are the songs I dreamed, but ne’er have sung,
The words of love you heard not on my tongue.
G. A. Greene.
“QUI SAIT AIMER, SAIT MOURIR.”
“I burn my soul away!”
So spake the Rose and smiled; “within my cup
All day the sunbeams fall in flame, all day
They drink my sweetness up!”