year, and I had hoped to spend
A life of pleasant communing, to be
A kindred spirit holding fast to thee,
We never thought that love had such an end.

This was the end love made, for our delight,
For one sweet year he cannot take away;—
Those tapers burning in the dim half-light,
Those kneeling women with a cross that pray,
And there, beneath green leaves and lilies white,
Beyond the reach of love, our loved one lay.

1879.



ON THE BORDER HILLS


So the dark shadows deepen in the trees
That crown the border mountains, all the air
Is filled with mist-begotten phantasies,
Shaped and transfigured in the sunset glare.
What wildly spurring warrior-wraiths are these?
What tossing headgear, and what red-gold hair?
What lances flashing, what far trumpet's blare
That dies along the desultory breeze?

Slow night comes creeping with her misty wings
Up to the hill's crest, where the yew trees grow;
About their shadow-haunted circle clings
The rumour of an unrecorded woe,
Old as the battle of those border kings
Slain in the darkling hollow-lands below.

1881.

SONGS



LONG AFTER


I see your white arras gliding,
In music o'er the keys,
Long drooping lashes hiding
A blue like summer seas:
The sweet lips wide asunder,
That tremble as you sing,
I could not choose but wonder,
You seemed so fair a thing.

For all these long years after
The dream has never died,
I still can hear your laughter,
Still see you at my side;
One lily hiding under
The waves of golden hair;
I could not choose but wonder,
You were so strangely fair.

I keep the flower you braided
Among those waves of gold,
The leaves are sere and faded,
And like our love grown old.
Our lives have lain asunder,
The years are long, and yet,
I could not choose but wonder.
I cannot quite forget.

1880.



"WHERE THE RHONE GOES DOWN TO THE SEA"


A sweet still night of the vintage time,
Where the Rhone goes down to the sea;
The distant sound of a midnight chime
Comes over the wave to me.
Only the hills and the stars o'erhead
Bring back dreams of the days long dead,
While the Rhone goes down to the sea.

The years are long, and the world is wide,
And we all went down to the sea;
The ripples splash as we onward glide,
And I dream they are here with me—
All lost friends whom we all loved so,
In the old mad life of long ago,
Who all went down to the sea.

So we passed in the golden days
With the summer down to the sea.
They wander still over weary ways,
And come not again to me.
I am here alone with the night wind's sigh,
The fading stars, and a dream gone by,
And the Rhone going down to the sea.

1880.



A SONG OF AUTUMN


All through the golden weather
Until the autumn fell,
Our lives went by together
So wildly and so well.—

But autumn's wind uncloses
The heart of all your flowers,
I think as with the roses,
So hath it been with ours.

Like some divided river
Your ways and mine will be,
—To drift apart for ever,
For ever till the sea.

And yet for one word spoken,
One whisper of regret,
The dream had not been broken
And love were with us yet.

1880.



"Ερωτοϛ" Ανδοϛ


The autumn wind goes sighing
Through the quivering aspen tree,
The swallows will be flying
Toward their summer sea;
The grapes begin to sweeten
On the trellised vine above,
And on my brows have beaten
The little wings of love.
Oh wind if you should meet her
You will whisper all I sing!
Oh swallow fly to greet her,
And bring me word in spring!

1881.

ATALANTA


Wait not along the shore, they will not come;
The suns go down beyond the windy seas,
Those weary sails shall never wing them home
O'er this white foam;
No voice from these
On any landward wind that dies among the trees.

Gone south, it may be, rudderless, astray,
Gone where the winds and ocean currents bore,
Out of all tracks along the sea's highway
This many a day,
To some far shore
Where never wild seas break, or any fierce winds roar.

For there are lands ye never recked of yet
Between the blue of stormless sea and sky,
Beyond where any suns of yours have set,
Or these waves fret;
And loud winds die
In cloudless summertide, where those far islands lie.

They will not come! for on the coral shore
The good ship lies, by little waves caressed,
All stormy ways and wanderings are o'er,
No more, no more!
But long sweet rest,
In cool green meadow-lands, that lie along the West.

Or if beneath far fathom depths of waves
She lies heeled over by the slow tide's sweep,
Deep down where never any swift sea raves,
Through ocean caves,
A dreaming deep
Of softly gliding forms, a glimmering world of sleep.

Then have they passed beyond the outer gate
Through death to knowledge of all things, and so
From out the silence of their unknown fate
They bid us wait,
Who only know
That twixt their loves and ours the great seas ebb and flow.



THE DAISY


With little white leaves in the grasses,
Spread wide for the smile of the sun,
It waits till the