That rising close around me, formed a grot
Fragrant with ferns, and musical with rills.
Far up above me grew the long-armed beech,
Dropping its branches down in graceful bent;
While farther up, beyond my utmost reach,
Stood dusky hemlocks, crowning the ascent.
And all about were sweeter sights and sounds
Than elsewhere, but in poet's dream, abounds.

Thus, and because my life was all too fair,
I sought to color it with thoughts I nursed
In sylvan solitudes: and in the air
Of these soft, silent influences, I first
Saw, or felt, rather, that the shadow fell
Upon my pathway from the light behind--
The light of youth's first joyousness. Ah, well,
If it had stayed there, nor been more unkind!
My earliest sorrow was a flower's death--
At which I wept until my swollen eyes
Refused to shed more tears--just that my wreath
One morn in autumn lacked its choicest dyes.
So, knowing what it was to have a loss,
I went on losing, and the shadow grew
Darker and longer, 'till it lies across
My pathway to the measure of my view.
We all remember sorrow's first impress--
No matter whether we had cause to grieve,
Or whether sad in very willfulness--
The lesson is the same that we receive.
And afterwards, when the great shadow falls--
The tempest--when the lightning's flash reveals
The darkness brooding o'er us, and appals
Hope by the terror of the stroke it deals--
_Then_, how the shadow hugs us in its fold!
We see no light behind, and none to come;
But dumbly shiver in the gloom and cold,
Or with despair lie down, and wait our doom.

Sweet, press thy cheek upon my own again--
Even now my life's dark ghost is haunting nigh:
Sing me to sleep with some old favorite strain--
Some gentle poet's loving lullaby;
For I would dream, and in my dream forget
Our twofold life is full of shadows set.

SOUVENIR.

You ask me, "Do you think of me?"
Dear, thoughts of thee are like this river,
Which pours itself into the sea,
Yet empties its own channel never.

All other thoughts are like these sail
Drifting the river's surface over;
_They_ veer about with every gale--
The _river_ keeps its course forever.

So deep and still, so strong and true,
The current of my soul sets thee-ward,
Thy river I, my ocean you,