My eyes are brown, and yours are still and grey,
Still as the frostbound lake
Whose depths are sleeping in the icy sway,
And will not wake.
Soundless they are below the leaden sky,
Bound with that silent chain;
Yet chains may fall, and those that fettered lie
May live again.
Yes, turn away, grey eyes, you dare not face
In mine the flame of life;
When frost meets fire, 'tis but a little space
That ends the strife.
Then comes the hour, when, breaking from their bands,
The swirling floods run free,
And you, beloved, shall stretch your drowning hands,
And cling to me.
ARMED
Give me to-night to hide me in the shade,
That neither moon nor star
May see the secret place where I am laid,
Nor watch me from afar.
Let not the dark its prying ghosts employ
To peer on my retreat,
And see the fragments of my broken toy
Lie scattered at my feet.
I fashioned it, that idol of my own,
Of metal strange and bright;
I made my toy a god—I raised a throne
To honour my delight.
This haunted byway of the grove was lit
With lamps my hand had trimmed,
Before the altar in the midst of it
I kept their flame undimmed.
My steps turned ever to the hidden shrine;
Aware or unaware,
My soul dwelt only in that spot divine,
And now a wreck lies there.