imson,--
The ruby of her lips.

Why speak of pearls of Oman
That shells of ocean sheathe?
I know a purer nacre,--
The white pearls of her teeth.

Why tell me of the sapphires
That Kings and Khalifs prize?
I know a lovelier azure,--
The sapphires of her eyes.

Go search the far Earth over,
Go search the farthest sea,
You will not find a cameo
Like her God carved for me.

LA JEUNESSE ET LA MORT.

I.

Unto her fragrant face and hair,--
As some wild bee unto a rose,
That blooms in splendid beauty there
Within the South,--my longing goes:
My longing, that is over fain
To call her mine, but all in vain;
Since jealous Death, as each one knows,
Is guardian of La belle Helene;
Of her whose face is very fair--
To my despair,
Sweet belle Helene.

II.

The sweetness of her face suggests
The sensuous scented Jacqueminots;
Magnolia blooms her throat and breasts;
Her hands long lilies in repose:
Fair flowers all without a stain,
That grow for Death to pluck again,
Within that garden's radiant close,
The body of La belle Helene;
The garden glad that she suggests,--
That Death invests.
Sweet belle Helene.

III.

God had been kinder to me,--when
He dipped His hands in fires and snows
And made you like a flow'r to ken,
A flow'r that in Earth's garden grows,--
Had He, for pleasure or for pain,
Instead of Death in that demesne,
Made Love the gardener to that rose,
Your loveliness, O belle Helene;
God had been kinder to me then--
And to all men,
Sweet belle Helene.

LOVE AND LOSS.

Loss molds our lives in many ways,
And fills our souls with guesses;
Upon our hearts sad hands it lays
Like some grave priest that blesses.

Far better than the love we win,
That earthly passions leaven,
Is love we lose, that knows no sin,
That points the path to Heaven.

Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth,
Through whom our dreams are nearest;
And loss, through whom we see the worth
Of all that we held dearest.

Not joy it is, but misery
That chastens us, and sorrow;--
Perhaps to make us all that we
Expect beyond To-morrow.

Within that life where time and fate
Are not; that knows no seeming:
That world to which death keeps the gate
Where love and loss sit dreaming