Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted--for the one I cannot content myself without, soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are passing, but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed--but it is useless--I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment--I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me--distracted--his friend, his lover, lost to him?
Is he too ...

Dry light reverberates, colour withdrawing
Into a sky so white, sight cannot follow it.
While in the shadows cast, rich hues, intenser
Far than in light spaces, offer me gladness.
Sun reigns triumphantly, thinning all vapour
Into translucency, through which the foliage
Bears out in sparkles of full golden greenery.
O'er this, short dashes of keen grey-green masses lie;
Even the cooler tints, pitched in this higher key -
Purpling and greening greys - are fierce as fires.
All the vast universe lives in one beautiful
Summer - made lambent light, offering gladness.
Who can accept of it? Hearts where no echo rings
Wildly recalling deeds done by old Destiny -
Deeds of finality, darkening the spirit -
Rousing the echoes of thought to reverberate
Ever and ever "Alas!"...

Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,--
    My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.
    He is not banished, though, for this,--
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.

Though I shall walk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore.
    He must not watch my resting-place
    But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?

I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?
    His tears must not disturb my heart,
    But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?

Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;
    Joy is not gone from summer skies,
    Nor innocence from children's eyes,
And all ...

How can a heart play any more with life,
    After it has found a woman and known tears?

In vain I shut my windows against the moonlight;
    I have estranged sleep.

The flower of her face is growing in the shadow
    Among warm and rustling leaves....

I see the sunlight on her house,
    I see her curtains of vermilion silk....

Here is the almond-coloured dawn;
    And there is dew on the petals of my night flower.

Lyric of Korea.

The snow-flakes were softly falling
    Adown on the landscape white,
When the violet eyes of my first born
    Opened unto the light;
And I thought as I pressed him to me,
    With loving, rapturous thrill,
He was pure and fair as the snow-flakes
    That lay on the landscape still.

I smiled when they spoke of the weary
    Length of the winter's night,
Of the days so short and so dreary,
    Of the sun's cold cheerless light -
I listened, but in their murmurs
    Nor by word nor thought took part,
For the smiles of my gentle darling
    Brought light to my home and heart.

Oh! quickly the joyous springtime
    Came back to our ice-bound earth,
Filling meadows and woods with sunshine,
    And hearts with gladsome mirth,
But, ah!...

    You miss the touch of her dear hand,
    Her laughter gay and sweet,
    The dimpled cheek, the sunny smile,
    The patter of her feet.

    The loving glances she bestowed,
    The tender tales she told -
    The world, since she has gone away,
    Seems empty, drear and cold.

    Dear, oft you prayed that God would give
    Your darling joy and grace,
    That pain or loss might never dim
    The brightness of her face.

    That her young heart might keep its trust,
    Its purity so white,
    Its wealth of sweet unselfishness,
    Her eyes their radiant light,

    Her fair, soft face its innocence
    Of every guile and wrong,
    And nothing touch to mar the joy
    And gladness of her song.

    God he...

Yellow leaves, how fast they flutter - woodland hollows thickly strewing,
    Where the wan October sunbeams scantly in the mid-day win,
While the dim gray clouds are drifting, and in saddened hues imbuing
        All without and all within!

All within! but winds of autumn, little Henry, round their dwelling
    Did not load your father's spirit with those deep and burdened sighs; -
Only echoed thoughts of sadness, in your mother's bosom swelling,
        Fast as tears that dim her eyes.

Life is fraught with many changes, checked with sorrow and mutation,
    But no grief it ever lightened such a truth before to know: -
I behold them - father, mother - as they seem to contemplation,
    Only three short weeks ago!

Saddened for the morrow's parting - up the stair...

The hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs,
That wore the marks of many rains, and showed
Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot.
Moreover, round the bases of the bark
Were left the tracks of flying forest fires,
As you may see them on the lower bole
Of every elder of the native woods.

For, ere the early settlers came and stocked
These wilds with sheep and kine, the grasses grew
So that they took the passing pilgrim in
And whelmed him, like a running sea, from sight.

And therefore, through the fiercer summer months,
While all the swamps were rotten; while the flats
Were baked and broken; when the clayey rifts
Yawned wide, half-choked with drifted herbage past,
Spontaneous flames would burst from thence and race
Across the prairies all day lo...

Bright summer comes, all bloom and flowers,
To garland o'er her faded bowers;
There's balm and sunshine on her wing,
But where's the friend she used to bring?
One heart is sad 'mid all the glee,
And only asks, "Oh, where is he?"

He comes not now, he comes not now,
To chase the gloom from off my brow,
He comes not with his wonted smile
The weary moments to beguile.
There's joy in every look I see,
But mine is sad, for "Where is he?"

Closed is the book we used to read;
There's none to smile, there's none to heed;
Our 'customed walk's deserted, too;
It charms not as it used to do;
The fav'rite path, the well-known tree,
All, all are whispering, "Where is he?"

This faithful heart is now a shrine
For each dear look and...

I have dreamed sweet dreams of a summer night,
When the moon was walking in cloudless light,
And my soul to the regions of Fancy sprung,
While the spirits of air their soft anthems sung,
Strains wafted down from those heavenly spheres
Which may not be warbled in waking ears;
More sweet than the voice of waters flowing,
Than the breeze over beds of violets blowing,
When it stirs the pines, and sultry day
Fans himself cool with their tremulous play.
On the sleeper's ear those rich notes stealing,
Speak of purer and holier feeling
Than man in his pilgrimage here below,
In the bondage of sin, can ever know.

    I heard in my slumbers the ceaseless roar
Of the sparkling waves, as they met the shore,
Till lulled by the surge of the moon-lit deep,
By the h...

Farewell to the feast-day! the pray'r book is stained
With tears; of the booth scarce a trace has remained;
The lime branch is withered, the osiers are dying,
And pale as a corpse the fair palm-frond is lying;
The boughs of grey willow are trodden and broken--
Friend, these are your hopes and your longings unspoken!

Lo, there lie your dreamings all dimm'd and rejected,
And there lie the joys were so surely expected!
And there is the happiness blighted and perished,
And all that aforetime your soul knew and cherished,
The loved and the longed for, the striven for vainly--
Your whole life before you lies pictured how plainly!

The branches are sapless, the leaves will decay,
An end is upon us, and whence, who shall say?
The broom of the beadle outside now has h...

Far as the eye can see the land is grey,
And desolation sits among the stones
Looking on ruin who, from rocks like bones,
Stares with a dead face at the dying day.
Mounds, where the barberry and bay hold sway,
Show where homes rose once; where the village crones
Gossiped, and man, with many sighs and groans,
Laboured and loved and went its daily way.
Only the crow now, like a hag returned,
Croaks on the common that its hoarse voice mocks.
Meseems that here the sorrow of the earth
Has lost herself, and, with the past concerned,
Sits with the ghosts of dreams that haunt these rocks,
And old despairs to which man's soul gave birth.

If that apparent part of life's delight
Our tingled flesh-sense circumscribes were seen
By aught save reflex and co-carnal sight,
Joy, flesh and life might prove but a gross screen.
Haply Truth's body is no eyable being,
Appearance even as appearance lies,
Haply our close, dark, vague, warm sense of seeing
Is the choked vision of blindfolded eyes.
Wherefrom what comes to thought's sense of life? Nought.
All is either the irrational world we see
Or some aught-else whose being-unknown doth rot
Its use for our thought's use. Whence taketh me
    A qualm-like ache of life, a body-deep
    Soul-hate of what we seek and what we weep.

Mourner, that dost deserve thy mournfulness,
    Call thyself punished, call the earth thy hell;
    Say, "God is angry, and I earned it well--
I would not have him smile on wickedness:"

Say this, and straightway all thy grief grows less:--
    "God rules at least, I find as prophets tell,
    And proves it in this prison!"--then thy cell
Smiles with an unsuspected loveliness.

--"A prison--and yet from door and window-bar
    I catch a thousand breaths of his sweet air!
    Even to me his days and nights are fair!
He shows me many a flower and many a star!
And though I mourn and he is very far,
    He does not kill the hope that reaches there!"

The moon from solemn azure sky
    Looked down on earth below,
And coldly her wan light fell alike
    On scenes of joy and woe:
A stately palace reared its dome,
    Within reigned warmth and light
And festive mirth - the moon's faint rays
    Soft kissed its marble white.

A little farther was the home
    Of toil, alas! and want,
That spectre grim that countless hearths
    Seems ceaselessly to haunt;
And yet, as if in mocking mirth,
    She smiled on that drear spot,
Silvering brightly the ruined eaves
    And roof of that poor cot.

And then, with curious gaze, she looked
    Within a curtained loom,
Where sat a girl of gentle mien
    In young life's early bloom;
Her glitt'ring light made still more bright
    The veil ...

Beeny did not quiver,
    Juliot grew not gray,
Thin Valency's river
    Held its wonted way.
Bos seemed not to utter
    Dimmest note of dirge,
Targan mouth a mutter
    To its creamy surge.

Yet though these, unheeding,
    Listless, passed the hour
Of her spirit's speeding,
    She had, in her flower,
Sought and loved the places -
    Much and often pined
For their lonely faces
    When in towns confined.

Why did not Valency
    In his purl deplore
One whose haunts were whence he
    Drew his limpid store?
Why did Bos not thunder,
    Targan apprehend
Body and breath were sunder
    Of their former friend?

Death.


    It is the joy, it is the zest of life,
    To know that Death, ungainly to the vile,
    Is not a traitor with a reckless knife,
    And not a serpent with a look of guile,
    But one who greets us with a seraph's smile, -
    An angel - guest to tend us after strife,
    And keep us true to God when fears are rife,
    And sceptic thought would daunt us or defile.
    He walks the world as one empower'd to fill
    The fields of space for Father and for Son.
    He is our friend, though morbidly we shun
    His tender touch, - a cure fo...

    Between the folding sea-downs,
    In the gloom
    Of a wailful wintry nightfall,
    When the boom
Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

    Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley
    From the shore
    To the chamber where I darkled,
    Sunk and sore
With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before

    To salute me in the dwelling
    That of late
    I had hired to waste a while in -
    Vague of date,
Quaint, and remote wherein I now expectant sate;

    On the solitude, unsignalled,
    Broke a man
    Who, in air as if at home there,
    Seemed to scan
Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.

    A stranger's and no lover's
    Eyes were these,
    Eyes of a man wh...