store
  In the desolate day, where no blossoms gleam?
  Forgetfulness and a dream!

V

  But now the fretful wind awakes;
  I hear him girding at the trees;
  He strikes the bending boughs, and shakes
  The quiet clusters of the bees
  To powdery drift;
  He tosses them away,
  He drives them like spray;
  He makes them veer and shift
  Around his blustering path.
  In clouds blindly whirling,
  In rings madly swirling,
  Full of crazy wrath,
  So furious and fast they fly
  They blur the earth and blot the sky
  In wild, white mirk.
  They fill the air with frozen wings
  And tiny, angry, icy stings;
  They blind the eyes, and choke the breath,
  They dance a maddening dance of death
  Around their work,
  Sweeping the cover from the hill,
  Heaping the hollows deeper still,
  Effacing every line and mark,
  And swarming, storming in the dark
  Through the long night;
  Until, at dawn, the wind lies down,
  Weary of fight.
  The last torn cloud, with trailing gown,
  Passes the open gates of light;
  And the white bees are lost in flight.

VI

  Look how the landscape glitters wide and still,
     Bright with a pure surprise!
  The day begins with joy, and all past ill,
     Buried in white oblivion, lies
  Beneath the snowdrifts under crystal skies.
  New hope, new love, new life, new cheer,
    Flow in the sunrise beam,—
    The gladness of Apollo when he sees,
  Upon the bosom of the wintry year,
  The honey-harvest of his wild white bees,
     Forgetfulness and a dream!

III

LEGEND

  Listen, my beloved, while the silver morning,
     like a tranquil vision,
   Fills the world around us and our hearts with
     peace;
  Quiet is the close of Aristaeus' legend, happy is
     the ending—
   Listen while I tell you how he found release.

  Many months he wandered far away in sadness,
       desolately thinking
   Only of the vanished joys he could not find;
  Till the great Apollo, pitying his shepherd, loosed
       him from the burden
   Of a dark, reluctant, backward-looking mind.

  Then he saw around him all the changeful beauty
       of the changing seasons,
   In the world-wide regions where his journey
       lay;
  Birds that sang to cheer him, flowers that bloomed
        beside him, stars that shone to guide him,—
    Traveller's joy was plenty all along the way!

  Everywhere he journeyed strangers made him
       welcome, listened while he taught them
   Secret lore of field and forest he had learned:
  How to train the vines and make the olives fruit-
       ful; how to guard the sheepfolds;
   How to stay the fever when the dog-star burned.

  Friendliness and blessing followed in his foot-
        steps; richer were the harvests,
    Happier the dwellings, wheresoe'er he came;
  Little children loved him, and he left behind him,
         in the hour of parting,
    Memories of kindness and a god-like name.

  So he travelled onward, desolate no longer,
      patient in his seeking,
   Reaping all the wayside comfort of his quest;
  Till at last in Thracia, high upon Mount Haemus,
         far from human dwelling,
    Weary Aristaeus laid him down to rest.

  Then the honey-makers, clad in downy whiteness,
        fluttered soft around him,
    Wrapt him in a dreamful slumber pure and
       deep.
  This is life, beloved: first a sheltered garden,
        then a troubled journey,
    Joy and pain of seeking,—and at last we sleep!

NEW YEAR'S EVE

I

  The other night I had a dream, most clear
  And comforting, complete
  In every line, a crystal sphere,
  And full of intimate and secret cheer.
  Therefore I will repeat
  That vision, dearest heart, to you,
  As of a thing not feigned, but very true,
  Yes, true as ever in my life befell;
  And you, perhaps, can tell
  Whether my dream was really sad or sweet.

II

  The shadows flecked the elm-embowered street
  I knew so well, long, long ago;
  And on the pillared porch where Marguerite
  Had sat with me, the moonlight lay like snow.
  But she, my comrade and my friend of youth,
  Most gaily wise,
  Most innocently loved,—
  She of the blue-grey eyes
  That ever smiled and ever spoke the truth,—
  From that familiar dwelling, where she moved
  Like mirth incarnate in the years before,
  Had gone into the hidden house of Death.
  I thought the garden wore
  White mourning for her blessed innocence,
  And the syringa's breath
  Came from the corner by the fence,
  Where she had made her rustic seat,
  With fragrance passionate, intense,
  As if it breathed a sigh for Marguerite.
  My heart was heavy with a sense
  Of something good forever gone. I sought
  Vainly for some consoling thought,
  Some comfortable word that I could say
  To the sad father, whom I visited again
  For the first time since she had gone away.
  The bell rang shrill and lonely,—then
  The door was opened, and I sent my name
  To him,—but ah! 't was Marguerite who came!
  There in the dear old dusky room she stood
  Beneath the lamp, just as she used to stand,
  In tender mocking mood.
  "You did not ask for me," she said,
  "And so I will not let you take my hand;
  "But I must hear what secret talk you planned
  "With father. Come, my friend, be good,
  "And tell me your affairs of state:
  "Why you have stayed away and made me wait
  "So long. Sit down beside me here,—
  "And, do you know, it seemed a year
  "Since we have talked together,—why so late?"

  Amazed, incredulous, confused with joy
  I hardly dared to show,
  And stammering like a boy,
  I took the place she showed me at her side;
  And then the talk flowed on with brimming tide
  Through the still night,
  While she with influence light
  Controlled it, as the moon the flood.
  She knew where I had been, what I had done,
  What work was planned, and what begun;
  My troubles, failures, fears she understood,
  And touched them with a heart so kind,
  That every care was melted from my mind,
  And every hope grew bright,
  And life seemed moving on to happy ends.
  (Ah, what self-beggared fool was he
  That said a woman cannot be
  The very best of friends?)
  Then there were memories of old times,
  Recalled with many a gentle jest;
  And at the last she brought the book of rhymes
  We made together, trying to translate
  The Songs of Heine (hers were always best).
  "Now come," she said,