BETRAYAL
She will not die, they say,
She will but put her beauty by
And hie away.
Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely
Then will seem all reverie,
How black to me!
All things will sad be made
And every hope a memory,
All gladness dead.
Ghosts of the past will know
My weakest hour, and whisper to me,
And coldly go.
And hers in deep of sleep,
Clothed in its mortal beauty I shall see,
And, waking, weep.
Naught will my mind then find
In man's false Heaven my peace to be:
All blind, and blind.
THE CAGE
Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird,
Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay?
'Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard,
Caught only a feint of day.
Still is the night all dark, a homeless dark.
Burn yet the unanswering stars. And silence brings
The same sea's desolate surge—sans bound or mark—
Of all your wanderings.