The night I returned home
my white bones followed
and lay down in the same room.

The dark room gave out
on the universe
and the wind blew
like a voice from heaven.

Peering down at my white bones,
so finely worn away and
pulverized by the wind amid the darkness,
I wonder who it is whose tears are being shed.
Am I crying?
Or is it my white bones?
Perhaps my beautiful soul?

A steadfast dog howls
in the darkness through the night.

The dog howling in the darkness
must be the one that is driving me away.

White-haired, but wanton still,
she eyed a bright young spark.
Hair dyed black, she panted to the mountaintop, but as she crested the topmost ridge a sudden burst of rain stained her white collar black and turned her black hair white again.
Thus the matron's
hopes were raised and shattered in a trice.

Be sure to invite me
when your wine matures.
I shall invite you
if flowers bloom in my arbor.
We shall discuss, then, how to live
a hundred years without worry.

No more! a harp-string's deep and breaking tone,
A last low summer breeze, a far-off swell,
A dying echo of rich music gone,
Breathe through those words—those murmurs of farewell:
No more!

To dwell in peace, with home affections bound,
To know the sweetness of a mother's voice,
To feel the spirit of her love around,
And in the blessing of her eye rejoice—
No more!

A dirge-like sound! to greet the early friend
Unto the hearth, his place of many days;
In the glad song with kindred lips to blend,
Or join the household laughter by the blaze—

Thou art sounding on, thou mighty sea,
For ever and the same!
The ancient rocks yet ring to thee;
Those thunders nought can tame.

Oh! many a glorious voice is gone
From the rich bowers of earth,
And hush'd is many a lovely one
Of mournfulness or mirth.

The Dorian flute that sigh'd of yore
Along the wave, is still;
The harp of Judah peals no more
On Zion's awful hill.

And Memnon's lyre hath lost the chord
That breathed the mystic tone;
And the songs at Rome's high triumphs pour'd
Are with her eagles flown.

Proudly Sorrow goes,
Telling not her woes
In the ear of him that passeth by.
Cloth of gold she weareth,
Like a Queen appeareth,
Royally.

When, to Joy turning,
And for Love burning,
She shall shed the tears that she hath scorned,
Wilt thou speak again?
Wilt thou ask me then

O'er fallow plains and fertile meads,
—Aurora lifts the torch of day;
The shad'wy brow of Night recedes,
—Cold dew-drops fall from every spray;
Now o'er the thistle's rugged head,
—Thin veils of filmy vapour fly,
On ev'ry violet's perfum'd bed
—The sparkling gems of Nature lie.

The hill's tall brow is crown'd with gold,
—The Milk-maid trills her jocund lay,
The Shepherd-boy impens his fold,
—The Lambs along the meadows play;
The pilf'ring Lark, with speckled breast,
—From the ripe sheaf's rich banquet flies;
And lifting high his plumy crest,

Head bowed beneath her black turban, she glances up at her daughter
who eyes in the mirror herself, yellow hair and beautiful face.

Because the little gentleman made nautical instruments
And lived in a street which ran down to the sea,
The neighbours called him “Salt Charlie.”
I wonder what they would have said if they had known
That he stole out every evening to a sweet-shop
And bought sticks of red-and-white sugar candy.
It was a pleasant thing to see him,
Standing meekly before the custom-house,
Sucking a sugar-stick,
And gazing at the dead funnels of anchored steamers
Against a star-sprung sky.

I thought of him in an oval gilt frame
Against sprigged wall-paper,

Ladies, I do not know you, and I think
I do not want to. And a strange beginning
I make with that. Admitted; there's the odds.
You live between the covers of a book,
At least for me, but then I've known a crowd
Of other people who do that. My mind
Is stuffed with phantoms out of poets' brains.
But you are out of nothing but the air,
Or were, rather, for one of you is dead.
Dead or alive, it is the same to me,
Since all our contact lies in printer's ink.

But even this, peculiar as it is,
Is but a thread of singularity.