Before the dreadful altar-stone.

She will not look or speak or stir,
But with drowned lips and cheeks death-white
Will lie amid the pool of light,
Until, grown faint with thirst of her,
He shall bow down his face and sink
Breathless beneath the eddying brink.

Then a swift music will begin,
And as the brazen doors shut slow,
There will be hurrying to and fro,
And lights and calls and silver din,
While through the star-freaked swirl of air
The god's sweet cruel eyes will stare.

HEART'S WILD-FLOWER

To-night her lids shall lift again, slow, soft, with vague desire,
And lay about my breast and brain their hush of spirit fire,
And I shall take the sweet of pain as the laborer his hire.

And though no word shall e'er be said to ease the ghostly sting,
And though our hearts, unhoused, unfed, must still go wandering,
My sign is set upon her head while stars do meet and sing.

Not such a sign as women wear who make their foreheads tame
With life's long tolerance, and bear love's sweetest, humblest name,
Nor such as passion eateth bare with its crown of tears and flame.

Nor such a sign as happy friend sets on his friend's dear brow
When meadow-pipings break and blend to a key of autumn woe,
And the woodland says playtime 's at end, best unclasp hands and go.

But where she strays, through blight or blooth, one fadeless flower
she wears,
A little gift God gave my youth,--whose petals dim were fears,
Awes, adorations, songs of ruth, hesitancies, and tears.

O heart of mine, with all thy powers of white beatitude,
What are the dearest of God's dowers to the children of his blood?
How blow the shy, shy wilding flowers in the hollows of his wood?

HARMONICS

This string upon my harp was best beloved:
I thought I knew its secrets through and through;
Till an old man, whose young eyes lightened blue
'Neath his white hair, bent over me and moved
His fingers up and down, and broke the wire
To such a laddered music, rung on rung,
As from the patriarch's pillow skyward sprung
Crowded with wide-flung wings and feet of fire.

O vibrant heart! so metely tuned and strung
That any untaught hand can draw from thee
One clear gold note that makes the tired years young--
What of the time when Love had whispered me
Where slept