If I could take this love from out my heart
And go my way in silence and alone,
Unweeping, and to fear and joy unknown,
Forgetful of the world's bright-colored mart,
Passing amidst the human throng, apart,
Like one who walks with beauty in the night,
Remembering all the tears and vain delight,
The rapture and the pain that were my part—
Then I could watch again the swallows dart
Into the sky's blue dome unenvyingly,
Knowing I am at last as they are, free . . . .
And I would say: “Though all sweet dreams depart,

Beloved, I sometimes wish that you had died
And passed into the calm of a green grave,
Where I could tend your spirit, a glad slave
Of perfect memories; and throughout the wide
Mist-clouded future I could rest beside
Your moss-embowered image, dreaming of when
In some far land our souls might meet again
Cast Heavenward by death's befriending tide!
But you are living, and you tread the same
Deflowered earth as I, although our ways
Are sundered, and I cannot even claim
Sufficient tears to call back those glad days

Should you not come an hour when I await,
And stark the hours should fall one after one,
Void of all beauty and unknown to sun,
I would take sorrow for my constant mate
Nor care if death came early. O, how great
Would be the empty longing of my heart,
Still warm from its late loving, happy part,
Yet fearful of the lonely future state.
Beloved, we stand for now incorporate,
But what of that still hour inevitable
When there shall sound the terrifying knell
Of parting? . . . . Life may keep me very late,

So long it is that I have sought your face
In many lands, in ever-changing guise,
Throughout the multitudinous past that lies
Stretching behind me like a desert space;
Yea, in strange forms of some pre-natal race
My soul has wandered, seeking for your soul
O'er starry seas, in wooded glen and knoll,
Begging of God a little gift of grace—
The music of your swiftly passing feet,
The solace of your voice, so long desired.
O lovely and beloved, my heart was tired
With the old quest, and when it leapt to meet

The moment of our Love most beautiful
Was when at dusk we stood beside a lake,
The sunset fires within the woods awake
Like scarlet flower-fangs. Our hearts were full
Of gentle peace; the forest hush was deep,
And night, jewel-poised within the sapphire sky
Made love a holy thing. . . . We felt the high
Exalting rapture that ambrosial sleep
Casts o'er the yielding spirit, and we heard
The immutable silence of the twilit hour,
Our hearts attuned to some invisible power
Commingling as the two wings of a bird.

We are together in the Silent Hours,
When dusk has furled its banners and the night
Is tremulous on the hilltop in a white
Illimitable halo of moonflowers.
For when the curtain of the twilight lowers;
And the dull eves are barren of delight,
My spirit falls dreaming and takes sudden flight
Into the realm of Silence. . . . Sweet, 'tis ours,
This fathomless region of commingling soul;—
Unfearful we partake of beauty's wine
And quaff with joyous lips the mute divine
Watching the glory of the stars unroll.

Tears in my heart that weeps,
Like the rain upon the town.
What drowsy languor steeps
In tears my heart that weeps?

O sweet sound of the rain
On earth and on the roofs!
For a heart's weary pain
O the song of the rain!

Vain tears, vain tears, my heart!
What, none hath done thee wrong?
Tears without reason start
From my disheartened heart.

This is the weariest woe,
O heart, of love and hate
Too weary, not to know
Why thou hast all this woe.

Mystical strains unheard,
A song without a word,
Dearest, because thine eyes,
Pale as the skies,

Because thy voice, remote
As the far clouds that float
Veiling for me the whole
Heaven of the soul,

Because the stately scent
Of thy swan's whiteness, blent
With the white lily's bloom
Of thy perfume,

Ah! because thy dear love,
The music breathed above
By angels halo-crowned,
Odour and sound,

Hath, in my subtle heart,
With some mysterious art
Transposed thy harmony,

The wind the other evening overthrew
The little Love who smiled so mockingly
Down that mysterious alley, so that we,
Remembering, mused thereon a whole day through.

The wind has overthrown him! The poor stone
Lies scattered to the breezes. It is sad
To see the lonely pedestal, that had
The artist's name, scarce visible, alone,

Oh! it is sad to see the pedestal
Left lonely! and in dream I seem to hear
Prophetic voices whisper in my ear
The lonely and despairing end of all.

Oh! it is sad! And you, have you not found

As in the age of shepherd king and queen,
Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,
Under the sombre branches, and between
The green and mossy garden-ways she goes,
With little mincing airs one keeps to pet
A darling and provoking perroquet.
Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds
With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,
So vaguely hints of vague erotic things
That her eye smiles, musing among its folds.
—Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth,
Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly,
In her divine unconscious pride of youth,