now!

And haste with her
Bud-legacy,--
O, not to share,
To take of thee!

Thy night, slow, dark,
Yet song-lit shone,
Till who did hark
Missed not the moon;

When Morning found
Thy cold, pierced breast,
'Twas she who moaned,
To thy thorn pressed.

_Here lies the thorn-wound of the dawn
Through whose high morn the bird sings on._

TO A LOST COMRADE

We found the spring at eager noon,
And from one cup we drank;
Then on until the forest croon
In twilight tangle sank;

The night was ours, the stars, the dawn;
The manna crust, bird-shared;
And never failed our magic shoon,
Whatever way we fared.

If caged at last, ceased not the flow
Of sky-gleam through the bars;
And where were wounds I only know
Tear-kisses hid the scars.

And when, as round the world death-free
We wind-embodied roam,
I hear the gale that once was thee
Cry "Hollo!" I will come.

FOR M. L. P.

Rose Love lay dreaming where I passed,
Like flower blown from careless stem;
So still I dared to touch at last
Her white robe's hem.

Rose Love looked up and caught my hand,
Though in her eyes the sea-birds were;
When o'er my brow there blew a strand
Of cold, grey hair.

Rose Love stood up unriddling this,
Till shadows in my eyes grew old;
Then warmed the lock with sudden kiss;
Now flames it gold.

TO SLEEP

O silent lover of a world day-worn,
Taking the weary light to thy dusk arms,
Stealing where pale forms lie, sun-hurt and torn,
Waiting the balm of thy oblivious charms,
Make me thy captive ere I guess pursuit,
And cast me deep within some dreamless close,
Where hopes stir not, and white, wronged lips are mute,
And Pain's hot wings fold down o'er hushed woes.
And if ere morn thou choosest me to free,
Let it not be, dear jailer, through the door
That timeward opes, but to eternity
Set thou the soul that needs thee nevermore;
So I from sleep to death may softly wend
As one would pass from gentle friend to friend.

"LE PENSEUR"

Warm in this marble, that is stone no more,
Life at wound-pause lifts ear to woundless mind;
Backward the ages their slow clew unwind,