Hurrying wind o'er the heavens's hollow And the heavy rain to follow. PARTED PRESENCE. LOVE, I speak to your heart, Your eyes are afar to-day, Yet, love, look now in mine eyes. Dead hours and this hour that dies, Your hands to-day are not here, Yet lay them, love, in my hands. The hourglass sheds its sands All day for the dead hours' bier; But now, as two hearts draw near, This hour like a flower expands. O love, your hands in my hands! Your voice is not on the air, Yet, love, I can hear your voice : The truth of your steadfast choice. To-day your lips are afar, Yet draw my lips to them, love. But where I am and you are, But ever with mine, for ever, A DEATH-PARTING. LEAVES and rain and the days of the year, (Water-willow and wellaway,) All these fall, and my soul gives ear, And she is hence who once was here. (With a wind blown night and day.) Ah! but now, for a secret sign, (The willow's wan and the water white,) In the held breath of the day's decline Her very face seemed pressed to mine. (With a wind blown day and night.) O love, of my death my life is fain; (The willows wave on the water-way,) Your cheek and mine are cold in the rain, But warm they'll be when we meet again. (With a wind blown night and day.) Mists are heaved and cover the sky; (The willows wail in the waning light,) O loose your lips, leave space for a sigh,— They seal my soul, I cannot die. (With a wind blown day and night.) Leaves and rain and the days of the year, (Water-willow and wellaway,) All still fall, and I still give ear, (With a wind blown night and day.) SPHERAL CHANGE. In this new shade of Death, the show If only one might speak!-the one As listening to the sunken air, O dearest! while we lived and died O nearest, furthest! Can there be At length some hard-earned heart-won home, Where, exile changed for sanctuary, Our lot may fill indeed its sum, And you may wait and I may come? SUNSET WINGS. TO-NIGHT this sunset spreads two golden wings Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day, Each tree heart-deep the wrangling rout receives,— Save for the whirr within, You could not tell the starlings from the leaves; Then one great puff of wings, and the swarm heaves Away with all its din. Even thus Hope's hours, in ever-eddying flight, To many a refuge tend; With the first light she laughed, and the last light And now the mustering rocks innumerable While for the day's death, like a tolling knell, Is Hope not plumed, as 't were a fiery dart? Even as thou goest must she too depart, SONG AND MUSIC. O LEAVE your hand where it lies cool Of silence, and assuages thought. O lay your lips against your hand And let me feel your breath through it, While through the sense your song shall fit The soul to understand. The music lives upon my brain. Between your hands within mine eyes; THREE SHADOWS. I LOOKED and saw your eyes I looked and saw your heart In the shadow of the stream; Should win the immortal prize, And Heaven a hollow dream?" I looked and saw your love In the shadow of the sea; ALAS, SO LONG! AH! dear one, we were young so long, In the days we never again shall know. Ah! then was it all Spring weather? |