THA HAT was I, you heard last night When there rose no moon at all, Nor, to pierce the strained and tight Tent of heaven, a planet small: Life was dead, and so was light. Not a twinkle from the fly, Not a glimmer from the worm. When the crickets stopped their cry, When the owls forbore a term, You heard music; that was I. Earth turned in her sleep with pain, In at heaven and out again, Lightning! - where it broke the roof, Bloodlike, some few drops of rain. A SERENADE AT THE VILLA. What they could my words expressed, O my love, my all, my one! So wore night; the east was gray, White the broad-faced hemlock flowers; Soon would come another day; Ere its first of heavy hours Found me, I had past away. What became of all the hopes, Words and song and lute as well? Say, this struck you, -"When life gropes Feebly for the path where fell Light last on the evening slopes, "When no moon succeeds the sun, Nor can pierce the midnight's tent Any star, the smallest one, While some drops, where lightning went, Show the final storm begun, 61 Shall another voice avail, That shape be where those are not? "Has some plague a longer lease Can't one even die in peace? As one shuts one's eyes on youth, O, how dark your villa was, B EVELYN HOPE. EAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead! Little has yet been changed, I think, — The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. Sixteen years old when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name, It was not her time to love: beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, -- Till God's hand beckoned unawares, And the sweet white brow is all of her. Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told? No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love, I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few, Much is to learn and much to forget Ere the time be come for taking you. But the time will come, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say, And your mouth of your own geranium's red, - In the new life come in the old one's stead. I have lived, I shall say, so much since then, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, I loved you, Evelyn, all the while; My heart seemed full as it could hold, — There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. I will give you this leaf to keep, So, hush, See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. There, that is our secret! go to sleep; You will wake, and remember, and understand. Α MY STAR. LL that I know A of a certain star, Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue, Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird, like a flower, hangs furled; They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it. |