the gleaming spires of those high halls
  We garnished with bright gems and precious show;
No foot within the gilded doorway falls,
  Empty the rooms within the Long Ago.

Troops of white doves still haunt the shining towers,
  And fold in blissful calm, their wings of snow;
We bade them build their nests in brighter bowers,
  But still they linger in the Long Ago.

There in its sunny bay stand stately ships,
  We freighted for fair lands where we would go;
Still gleams our gold within their secret crypts,
  Becalmed beside the shore of Long Ago.

Between that land and this of dread and doubt,
  The silent years have drifted trackless snow;
Hiding the pathway where we wandered out,
  Forever from the land of Long Ago.

LEMOINE.

In the unquiet night,
With all her beauty bright,
  She walketh my silent chamber to and fro;
Not twice of the same mind,
Sometimes unkind—unkind,
  And again no cooing dove hath a voice so sweet and low.

Such madness of mirth lies
In the haunting hazel eyes,
  When the melody of her laugh charms the listening night;
Its glamour as of old
My charmed senses hold,
  Forget I earth and heaven in the pleasures of sense and sight.

With sudden gay caprice
Quaint sonnets doth she seize,
  Wedding them unto sweetness, falling from crimson lips;
Holding the broidered flowers
Of those enchanted hours,
  When she wound my will with her silk round her white finger-tips.

Then doth she silent stand,
Lifting her slender hand,
  On which gleams the ring I tore from his hand at Baywood;
The tiny opal hearts
Are broken in two parts,
  And where the ruby burned there hangeth a drop of blood.

Then with my burning cheek,
Raising my head, I speak,
  "Lemoine, Lemoine, my lost! Oh, speak to me once, I pray!"
But no word will she deign,
Adown the shining lane,
  The long and lustrous lane of the moonlight she glides away.

I fancy oft a stir,
Of wings seem following her,
  Trailing a terrible gloom along the oaken floor,
As she walks to and fro;
Louder the strange sounds grow
  To a nameless, dreadful horror, that floods the chamber o'er.

And then I raise my head
From terror-haunted bed,
  And hush my breath, and my very pulses hush and hark;
But as I glance around,
The stir, the murmuring sound,
  Dies away in the moonlight, lying there stiff and stark.

* * * * *

And thus you ever flee,
Elude and baffle me,
  My lady you will not always so lightly glide away;
Though on the swiftest breeze,
You sail o'er farthest seas,
  Remember, side by side we two will stand one day.

Though my dust feed the wind,
Yours be with prayer consigned
  To the keeping of churchyard seraphs and marble saints;
Lemoine, we two shall meet,
And not then at my feet
  Will you fetter a late repentance with wiles and tearful plaints.

Repentance and strong,
That would have found a tongue,
  And shrieked the truth to heaven with madd'ning din;
The truth of that dread hour,
That black accursed hour,
  When to free you from hated fetters, I plunged my soul in sin.

Whatever wise man thinks,
Sin forges strongest links,
  You can break them never, although for a time you may hide
Buried in flowers and wine;
This chain of thine and mine,
  At the last dread day of doom will draw us side by side.

If one, then both are cursed,
And come the best, the worst,
  Forever and ever your fate and mine are entwined;
And though it be mad—mad,
Heaven knows the thought is glad,
  I do not breed my thoughts, how can I help my mind.

* * * * *

So silent doth she come,
Standing here pale and dumb,
  With her finger laid on her lips in a warning way;
Her dark eyes looking back,
As if upon her track
  And mine, some phantom shape of impending evil lay.

But when I strive to see,
Of what she's warning me,
  Cruelly calm, no sign will she deign to love or fears;
Unheeding vow or prayer,
As noiseless as the air,
  She glideth into the pallid moonlight and disappears.

SLEEP.

Come to me soft-eyed sleep,
  With your ermine sandalled feet;
Press the pain from my troubled brow
  With your kisses cool and sweet;
Lull me with slumbrous song,
  Song of your clime, the blest,
While on my heavy eyelids
  Your dewy fingers rest.

Come with your native flowers,
  Heartsease and lotus bloom,
Enwrap my weary senses
  With the cloud of their perfume;
For the whispers of thought tire me,
  Their constant, dull repeat,
Like low waves throbbing, sobbing,
  With endless, endless beat.

THE LADY MAUD.

I sit in the cloud and the darkness
  Where I lost you, peerless one;
Your bright face shines upon fairer lands,
  Like the dawning of the sun,
And what to you is the rustic youth,
  You sometimes smiled upon.

You have roamed through mighty cities,
  By the Orient's gleaming sea,
Down the glittering streets of Venice,
  And soft-skied Araby:
Life to you has been an anthem,
  But a solemn dirge to me.

For everywhere, by Rome's bright hills,
  Or by the silvery Rhine,
You win all hearts to you, where'er
  Your glancing tresses shine;
But, darling, the love of the many,
  Is not a love like mine.

Last night I heard your voice in my dreams,
  I woke with a joyous thrill
To hear but the half-awakened birds,
  For the dark dawn lingered still,
And the lonesome sound of the waters,
  At the foot of Carey's hill.

Oh the pines are dark on Carey's hill,
  And the waters are black below,
But they shone like waves of jasper
  Upon one day I know,
The day I bore you out of the stream,
  With your face as white as snow.

You lay like a little lamb in my arms,
  So frail a thing, so weak,
And my coward lips said burning words
  They never had dared to speak
If they had not felt the chill of your brow,
  And the marble of your cheek.

Life had been but a bitter gift,
  That I fain would have thrown away,
But I could have thanked my God on my knees,
  For giving me life that day,
As I took you, lying so helpless,
  From the gates of death away.

How your noble kinsmen laughed and wept
  O'er their treasure snatched from the flood,
And your white-faced brother brought me gold—
  You loved him, or I could
Have obeyed the fiend that told me
  To curse him where he stood.

Gold! Oh, darling, they had no need
  Such insults to repeat;
I knew the