How many a changing moon hath lit
The unchanging roses of her face!
Her mirror ever broods on it
In silver stillness of the days.
Oft flits the moth on filmy wings
Into his solitary lair;
Shrill evensong the cricket sings
From some still shadow in her hair.
In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood,
She sleeps in lovely loneliness,
Half-folded like an April bud
On winter-haunted trees.
THE HORN
Hark! is that a horn I hear,
In cloudland winding sweet—
And bell-like clash of bridle-rein,
And silver-shod light feet?
Is it the elfin laughter
Of fairies riding faint and high,
Beneath the branches of the moon,
Straying through the starry sky?
Is it in the globèd dew
Such sweet melodies may fall?
Wood and valley—all are still,
Hushed the shepherd's call.
CAPTAIN LEAN
Out of the East a hurricane
Swept down on Captain Lean—
That mariner and gentleman
Will never again be seen.
He sailed his ship against the foes
Of his own country dear,
But now in the trough of the billows
An aimless course doth steer.