y's best dwelling-place;
You know sweet love is there.

In one, there lies a white and wasted face
Whereon is frozen such supreme despair,
You need but look to know what left the trace;
You know love _has been_ there.

To one he comes! She leans her head of gold
Upon his breast and bids him no more roam.
Ah God! Ah God! and one lies stark and cold,
Because he ceased to come.

THREE AT THE OPERA

Last night the house was crowded. Were you there?
You thought our box held only two, maybe--
Myself and chaperon, a matron fair.
There was another whom you did not see.

Close, close beside me, sat a phantom form;
Above the music and loud cheer on cheer
That rose, and thundered like a sudden storm,
I heard his low voice whispering in my ear.

A dead man's voice. You know when dead men speak
There is no noise their least tone will not drown.
His sweet soft words brought blushes to my cheek,
And made my happy eyelids flutter down.

There were so many glasses turned on me,
My chaperon was proud. She called me fair,
And said I drew their glances. Well, may be.
_I_ think they saw that dead man sitting there.

A dead man at an opera: how strange!
I know it must have seemed much out of place.
He smiled, and spoke, and there was little change
In the white pallor of his perfect face.

Yet he was dead. I knew it all the while,
I do not wonder people looked that way.
It seemed so odd to see a dead man smile;
Its strangeness never struck me till to-day.

He rose and went out when we left our stall;
Rose up, went out, and vanished in the night.
He always sits beside me in that hall,
But goes when goes the music and the light.

A STRAIN OF MUSIC

In through the open window
To the chamber where I lay,
There came the beat of merry feet,
From the dancers over the way.
And back on the wings of the music
That rose on the midnight air,
My rare youth came and spoke my name,
And lo! I was young and fair.

Once more in the glitter of gaslight
I stood in my life's glad prime:
And heart and feet in a rhythm sweet
Were keeping the music's time.
Like a leaf in the breeze of summer
I drifted down the hall,
On an arm that is cold with death and mould,
And is hidden under the pall.

Once more at a low voice's whisper
(A voice that is long since stilled)
I felt the flush of a rising blush,
And my pulses leaped and