Into the ceaseless surging of the sea…
Then twilight hours lead back my wandered spirit
From out the wilderness of mystery
Whence none may find a path to the Unknown,
And chastened to content I turn me home.
WAKING
Oh, the long dawn, the weary, endless dawn,
When sleep's oblivion is torn away
From love that died with dying yesterday
But still unburied in the heart lies on!
Oh, the sick gray, the twitter in the trees,
The sense of human waking o'er the earth!
The quivering memories of love's fair birth
Now strown as deathless flowers o'er its decease!
Oh, the regret, and oh, regretlessness,
Striving for sovranty within the soul!
Oh, fear that life shall never more be whole,
And immortality but make it less!
STORM-EBB
Dusking amber dimly creeps
Over the vale,
Lit by the kildee's silver sweeps,
Sad with his wail.
Eastward swing the silent clouds
Into the night.
Burdens of day they seem – in crowds
Hurled from earth's sight.
Tilting gulls whip whitely far
Over the lake,
Tirelessly on o'er buoy and spar
Till they o'ertake
Shadow and mingled mist – and then
Vanish to wing
Still the bewildering night-fen,
Where the waves ring.
Dusking amber dimly dies
Out of the vale.
Dead from the dunes the winds arise —
Ghosts of the gale.
LINGERING
I lingered still when you were gone,
When tryst and trust were o'er,
While memory like a wounded swan
In sorrow sung love's lore.
I lingered till the whippoorwill
Had cried delicious pain
Over the wild-wood – in its thrill
I heard your voice again.
I lingered and the mellow breeze
Blew to me sweetly dewed —
Its touch awoke the sorceries
Your last caresses brewed.
But when the night with silent start
Had sown her starry seed,
The harvest which sprang in my heart
Was loneliness and need.
FAUN-CALL
Oh, who is he will follow me
With a singing,
Down sunny roads where windy odes
Of the woods are ringing?
Where leaves are tossed from branches lost
In a tangle
Of vines that vie to clamber high —
But to vault and dangle!
Oh, who is he? – His eye must be
As a lover's
To leap and woo the chicory's hue
In the hazel-hovers!
His hope must dance like radiance
That hurries
To scatter shades from the silent glades
Where the quick hare scurries.
And he must see that Autumn's glee
And her laughter
From his lips and heart will quell all smart —
Of before and after!