ace de la Concorde, Paris_)

There rise the palace walls as fair to-day,
As when with arms and banners gleaming bright,
The pageantry of royal pomp and might
Passed through the guarded gates and went its way.
The blue, translucent beams of morning play
On arch triumphal, veiled in silver light;
And here, where blind red fury reached its height,
An ancient column rises grim and gray.

Slumbering in mystic sleep it seems to be,
And dreaming dreams of Egypt long ago,
Unmindful of the ceaseless ebb and flow
About its feet of life's unresting sea;
But 'mid the roar, I hear it murmur low:
Poor fools, they know not all is vanity!

GRAY BIRDS

Gray birds of passage from another sky
Are those long hours I sit and wait for you;
Borne by strong wings across the sunlit blue
They go--dark flecks of shadow drifting by.
Sometimes they bring a song--a joyful cry,
As morn and eve your coming used to do;
But sometimes plaintive notes of sorrow too,
Amid the joyful echoes wail and die.

Then as I watch the beating of the wings
That seek a haven by far northern lakes,
And catch the note of some bird-heart that sings,
Or hear the plaintive cry of one that breaks,
I turn once more to half-forgotten things,
And the old longing in my heart awakes.

AFTER TEA

See how the aged trembling hands of Day
Spill over the white cloth and tea-cups blue,
Red wine from his last goblet poured away;
So let me by the window sit with you,
And watch the sun drop down behind the trees,
Or gleam across the snow--a crimson bar;
For in still, mystic moments such as these
Down unknown by-ways we may wander far.
The crimson turns to purple on the snow,
The orange sky grown gray, and glimmering lights
Of scattered star-lamps through the darkness glow;
But neither Night nor Death my soul affrights,
For clear there gleams, all earthly dark above,
The ever-burning star-lamp of your love.

THROUGH A LONG CLOISTER

Through a long cloister where the gloom of night
Lingers in sombre silence all the day,
Across worn pavements crumbling to decay
We wandered, blindly groping for the light.
A door swung wide, and splendour infinite
Streamed through the painted glass, and drove away
The lingering gloom from choir, nave and bay,
And a great minster's glory met our sight.

Blindly along life