le house so white
Amid the flowers, covering every trace
Of beauty from my troubled sight,--
And suddenly it was night!

IV

At break of day I crossed the wooded vale;
And while the morning made
A trembling light among the tree-tops pale,
I saw the sable birds on every limb,
Clinging together closely in the shade,
And croaking placidly their surly hymn.
But, oh, the little land of peace and love
That those night-loving wings had poised above,--
Where was it gone?
Lost, lost, forevermore!
Only a cottage, dull and gray,
In the cold light of dawn,
With iron bars across the door:
Only a garden where the drooping head
Of one sad rose, foreboding its decay,
Hung o'er a barren bed:
Only a desolate field that lay
Untilled beneath the desolate day,--
Where Eden seemed to bloom I found but these!
So, wondering, I passed along my way,
With anger in my heart, too deep for words,
Against that grove of evil-sheltering trees,
And the black magic of the croaking birds.

WITHOUT DISGUISE

If I have erred in showing all my heart,
And lost your favour by a lack of pride;
If standing like a beggar at your side
With naked feet, I have forgot the art
Of those who bargain well in passion's mart,
And win the thing they want by what they hide;
Be mine the fault as mine the hope denied,
Be mine the lover's and the loser's part.

The sin, if sin it was, I do repent,
And take the penance on myself alone;
Yet after I have borne the punishment,
I shall not fear to stand before the throne
Of Love with open heart, and make this plea:
"At least I have not lied to her nor Thee!"

AN HOUR

You only promised me a single hour:
But in that hour I journeyed through a year
Of life: the joy of finding you,--the fear
Of losing you again,--the sense of power
To make you all my own,--the sudden shower
Of tears that came because you were more dear
Than words could ever tell you,--then,--the clear
Soft rapture when I plucked love's crimson flower.

An hour,--a year,--I felt your bosom rise
And fall with mystic tides, and saw the gleam
Of undiscovered stars within your eyes,--
A year,--an hour? I knew not, for the stream
Of love had carried me to Paradise,
Where all the forms of Time are like a dream.

"RAPPELLE-TOI"

Remember, when the timid light
Through the enchanted hall o