than I, in the bright
Sweet smile he gave her when he said good night—
   And his warm hand’s close, kind touch.

I must put out the light and go to bed;
   I wonder would she care
If she knew, when I knelt with low bowed head,
I prayed for her, but that I said
   His name the last in my prayer?

MAD

Could I but hear you laugh across the street,
Though I, or mine, shared nothing in your glee,
Could I taste that one drop of bitter sweet,
   ’Twere more than life to me.

If I might see you coming through the door,
Though with averted face and smileless eye,
Were I allowed that little boon, no more,
   Then I were glad to die.

But oh, my God! this living day on day,
Stripped of the only joy your starved heart had,
Shut in a prison world and forced to stay—
   Why that way souls go mad!

To-day I heard a woman say the earth,
All blossom garlanded, was fair to see.
I laughed with such intensity of mirth,
   The woman shrank from me.

Fair?  Why, I see the blackness of the tomb
Where’er I turn, and grave mould on each brow;
And grinning faces peer out of the gloom—
   Good God!  I am mad now.

WHICH

We are both of us sad at heart,
   But I wonder who can say
Which has the harder part,
   Or the bitterer grief to-day.

You grieve for a love that was lost
   Before it had reached its prime;
I sit here and count the cost
   Of a love that has lived its time.

Your blossom was plucked in its May,
   In its dawning beauty and pride;
Mine lived till the August day,
   And reached fruition and died.

You pressed its leaves in a book,
   And you weep sweet tears o’er them.
Dry eyed I sit and look
   On a withered and broken stem.

And now that all is told,
   Which is the sadder, pray,
To give up your dream with its gold,
   Or to see it fade into grey?

LOVE’S BURIAL

See him quake and see him tremble,
   See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
   This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
   Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he’s tasted—
   He has lived a year.

He has passed his day of glory,
   All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
   He is very old.
Just a leaf’s life in the wild wood,
   Is a love’s life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
   When he’s lived a year.

Long ago he lost his reason,
   Lost his trust and faith—
Better far in his first season
   Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
   No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
   Love that’s lived a year.

All his strength and all his passion,
   All his pride and truth,
These were wasted, spendthrift fashion,
   In his fiery youth.
Since for him life holds no beauty
   Let us shed no tear,
As we do the last sad duty—
   Love has lived a year.

INCOMPLETE

The summer is just in its grandest prime,
   The earth is green and the skies are blue;
But where is the lilt of the olden time,
When life was a melody set to rhyme,
   And dreams were so real they all seemed true?

There is sun on the meadow, and blooms on the bushes,
   And never a bird but is mad with glee;
But the pulse that bounds, and the blood that rushes,
And the hope that soars, and the joy that gushes,
   Are lost for ever to you and me.

There are dawns of amber and amethyst;
   There are purple mountains, and pale pink seas
That flush to crimson where skies have kist;
But out of life there is something missed—
   Something better than all of these.

We miss the faces we used to know,
   The smiling lips and the eyes of truth.
We miss the beauty and warmth and glow
Of the love that brightened our long ago,
   And ah! we miss our youth.

ON RAINY DAYS

On rainy days old dreams arise,
   From graves where they have lonely lain;
With wan white cheeks and mournful eyes,
   They press against the window pane.
One dream is bolder than the rest:
   She enters at the door and stays,
A welcome yet unbidden guest
      On rainy days.

On rainy days, my dream and I
   Turn back the hands of memory’s books:
We sup on pleasures long gone by—
   We drink of unforgotten brooks;
We ransack garrets of the Past,
   We sing old songs, we play old plays;
While hurrying Time looks on aghast,
      On rainy days.

On rainy days, my ghostly dreams
   Come clothed in garments like the mist,
But through that vapoury veiling, gleams
   The lustrous eyes my lips have kissed.
A radiant head leans on my heart,
   We walk in well-remembered ways;
But oh! the sorrow when we part,
      On rainy days.

GERALDINE

Just as the sun went bathing in a sea
Of liquid amber, flecked with caps of gold, I told
The sweet old story unto Geraldine, my Queen,
Who long hath made the whole of life for me.

But though she smiled upon me yesterday,
And heaven seemed near because she was so kind, I find
She held me but as one of many men; and then
Dismissed me in her proud, yet gracious way.

Ah, Geraldine! my lady of sweet arts,
There waits for thee not very far away, a day
When thou shalt waken out of tranquil sleep, and weep
Such bitter tears as spring from anguished hearts.

Thou shalt look in thy mirror with dismay
To find upon each feature of thy face, the trace
Of time, the lover who shall follow thee, and see
Thy rare youth slipping suddenly away.

So self-assured, so certain of thy power,
It shall come on thee with a swift surprise.  Thine eyes
Appalled, shall fall upon each certain, strange, sad change,
And rob thee of thy triumph in an hour.

And when that day shall come, as come it must,
You then will think of me, sweet Geraldine, my Queen,
And of the faithful heart there tossed away one day,
Before thy dead sea apples turned to dust.

To dust and ashes, leaving nothing more,
That day will come, my lady, I can wait; and Fate
Shall right my wrongs.  Thou smilest, Geraldine, my Queen!
Ah well, so have fair women smiled before.

ONLY IN DREAMS

How strange are dreams.  Last night I dreamed about you.
   All that old bitterness of loss and pain,
The desolation of my lot without you,
   The keen regret, all, all came back again.

Again I faced that terrible old sorrow;
   Too numb to weep, too cowardly to pray.
Again the blankness of a dread to-morrow
   Filled me with sickly terror and dismay.

I woke in tears; but lo! a moment after,
   When every vestige of my dream was fled,
I broke the silence of my room with laughter,
   To think sleep had revived a thing so dead.

Thank God, that only in the realms of fancy
   Can that old sorrow wake again to strife.
No fate is strong enough—no necromancy—
   To make it stir one pulse of my calm life.

My heart is light, my lot is blest without you,
   Our early sorrows are not what they seem,
Now in my slumber, if I dream about you
   I wake to laugh at such an idle dream.

CIRCUMSTANCE

Talk not to me of souls that do conceive
   Sublime ideals, but, deterred by Fate
   And bound by circumstances, sit desolate,
And long for