Flame unshaken in the west.

All day long the woodlands dying
Moaned, and drippings as of grief
Tossed from barren boughs with sighing
Death of flying twig and leaf.

Ah, to live a life unbroken,
Scornful of the worst of fate!
Like that tree ... with branches oaken....
Joy's unspoken intimate.--

Who can say that man has never
Lived the life of plants and trees?
Not so wide the lines that sever
Us forever here from these.

Colors, odors, that are cherished,
Haply hint we once were flowers;
Memory alone has perished
In this garished world of ours.

Music,--that all things expresses,
All for which we've loved or sinned,--
Haply in our treey tresses
Once was guesses of the wind....

But I dream!--The dusk, upbraiding,
Deepens without moon or star;
Darkness and my sorrow aiding,
We but fading phantoms are.

And within me doubt keeps saying--
"What is wrong? and what is right?
Hear the cursing! hear the praying!
All are straying on in night."

7

_He turns from the window, takes up a book and reads._

The Soul, like Earth, hath silences
Which speak not, yet are heard--
The voices mute of memories
Are louder than a word.

Theirs is a speech which is not speech;
A language that is bound
To soul-vibrations vague that reach
Deeper than any sound.

No words are theirs. They speak through things,
A visible utterance
Of thoughts--like those some sunset brings
Or withered rose perchance.

The heavens that once, in purple and flame,
Spake to two hearts as one,
In after years may speak the same
To one sad heart alone.

Through it the vanished face and eyes
Of her, the sweet and fair,
Of her the lost, again shall rise
To comfort his despair.

And so the love that led him long
From golden scene to scene,
Within the sunset is a tongue
To tell him what has been.--

How loud it speaks of that dead day,
The rose whose bloom is fled!
Of her who died; who, clasped in clay,
Lies numbered with the dead.

The dead are dead; with them 'tis well
Within their narrow room;--
No memories haunt their hearts who dwell
Within the grave and tomb.

But what of those--the dead who live!
The living dead, whose lot
Is still to love--ah, God forgive!--
To live and love, forgot!--

8

_The storm is heard soundin