Before he can regain the friendly shore;
So reckoned I your sojourn, day by day,
So grudged I every week that dropt away.

And as a prisoner, doomed and bound, upstarts
From shattered dreams of wedlock and repose,
At sudden rumblings of the market-carts,
Which bring to town the strawberry and the rose,
And wakes to meet sure death; so shuddered I,
To hear you meditate your gay Good-bye.

But why not gay? For, if there's aught you lose,
It is but drawing off a wrinkled glove
To turn the keys of treasuries, free to choose
Throughout the hundred-chambered house of love,
This pathos draws from you, though true and kind,
Only bland pity for the left-behind.

We part; you comfort one bereaved, unmanned;
You calmly chide the silence and the grief;
You touch me once with light and courteous hand,
And with a sense of something like relief
You turn away from what may seem to be
Too hard a trial of your charity.

So closes in the life of life; so ends
The soaring of the spirit. What remains?
To take whate'er the Muse's mother lends,
One sweet sad thought in many soft refrains
And half reveal in Coan gauze of rhyme
A cherished image of your joyous prime.

ALL THAT WAS POSSIBLE

Slope under slope the pastures dip
With ribboned waterfalls, and make
Scant room for just a village strip,
The setting of a sapphire lake.

And here, when summer draws the kine
To upland grasses patched with snow,
Our travellers rest not, only dine,
Then driven by Furies, onward go.

For pilgrims of the pointed stick,
With passport case for scallop shell,
Scramble for worshipped Alps too quick
To care for vales where mortals dwell.

Twice daily swarms the hostel's pier,
Twice daily is the table laid;
And, "Oh, that some would tarry here!"
Sighs Madeline, the serving-maid.

She shows them silly carven stuff;
Some sneer, but others smile and buy;
And these light smiles are quite enough
To make the wistful maiden sigh.

She scans the face, but not the mind;
She learns their taste in wines and toys,
But, seem they thoughtful and refined,
She fain would know their cares, their joys.

For man is not as horse and hound,
Who turn to meet their lord's caress,
Yet nev