oy of death that gladdens
In exultance of decay?

Arrogant you lift defiant
Boughs against the moaning blast,
That, like some invisible giant,
Wrapped in tumult, thunders past.

Is it that in such insurgent
Fury tossed from tree to tree,
You would quench the fiercely urgent
Pangs of some old memory?

As in toil and violent action,
That still help them to forget,
Mortals drown the dark distraction
And insistence of regret.

8

_She muses in the gathering twilight._

Last night I slept till midnight; then woke, and far away
A cock crowed; lonely and distant came mournful a watch-dog's bay:
But lonelier, sadder the tedious, old clock ticked on towards day.

And what a day!--remember those morns of summer and spring,
That bound our lives together! each morn a wedding-ring
Of dew, aroma and sparkle, and flowers and birds a-wing.

Sweet morns when I strolled my garden awaiting him, the rose
Expected too, with blushes--the Giant-of-Battle that grows
A bank of radiance and fragrance where the gate its shadow throws.

Not in vain did I wait, departed summer, amid your phlox!
The powdery crystal and crimson of your hollow hollyhocks;
Your fairy-bells and poppies and the bee that in them rocks.

Cool-clad 'neath the pendulous purple of the morning-glory vine,
By the jewel-mine of the pansies and the snapdragons in line,
I waited, and there he met me whose heart was one with mine.

How warm was the breath of the garden when he met me there that day!
How the burnished beetle and butterfly flew past us, each a ray!--
The memory of those meetings still bears me far away.

Ah, me! when I think of the handfuls of little gold coins a-mass
My bachelor's-buttons scattered over the garden grass,
And the marigolds that boasted their bits of burning brass;

More bitter I feel the autumn tighten 'round spirit and heart;
And regret the days remembered as lost--that stand apart,
A chapter holy and sacred, I read with eyes that smart.

Again to the woods a-trysting by the watermill I steal,
Where the lilies tumble together, the madcap wind at heel;
And meet him among the blossoms that the rocks and the trees conceal.

Or the wild-cat grey of the meadows that the ox-eyed daisies dot;
Fawn-eyed and tiger-yellow, that tangle a tawny spot
Of languid leopard beauty that dozes fierce and hot....

Ah! back again with the prese