al songs again.

Then, the dusk blew sweet over seas of peach-bloom;
The moon sailed white in the cloudless blue;
The tree-toads purred, and the crickets chirruped;
And better than anything dreamed came true;
For, under the murmuring palms, a shadow
Passed, with the eyes I knew;

A shadow, perhaps, of the tall green fountains
That rustled their fronds on that glittering sky,
A hungering shadow, a lean dark shadow,
A dreaming shadow that drifted by;
But I heard him whisper the strange dark music
That found it so "rich to die."

And the murmuring palms of San Diego
Shook with stars as he passed beneath.
The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards,
The night, and its roses, were all one breath,
Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward,
A song that had out-soared death.

COMPENSATIONS

Not with a flash that rends the blue
Shall fall the avenging sword.
Gently as the evening dew
Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made
To move with moon and tide;
Yet shall not mercy be afraid
Nor justice be denied.

The dreams that seemed to waste away,
The kindliness forgot,
Were singing in your heart today
Although you knew them not.

The sun shall not forget his road,
Nor the high stars their rhyme,
The traveller with the heavier load
Has one less hill to climb.

And, though a darker shadow fall
On every struggling age,
How shall it be if, after all,
He share our pilgrimage?

The end we mourn is not the end.
The dust has nimble wings.
But truth and beauty have a friend
At the deep heart of things.

He will not speak? What friend belies
His love with idle breath?
We read it in each others' eyes,
And ask no more in death.

DEAD MAN'S MORRICE

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
A phantom strain:
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._

In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk,
At fall of day,
Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk
As poor ghosts may,
From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew,
Or tears, or rain,...
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._

Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades
That do return,
Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades,
Those nooks of fern,
On