ARGUMENT.

Too soon you wearied of our tears.
And then you danced with spangled feet,
Leading Belshazzar's chattering court
A-tinkling through the shadowy street.
With mead they came, with chants of shame.
DESIRE'S red flag before them flew.
And Istar's music moved your mouth
And Baal's deep shames rewoke in you.

Now you could drive the royal car;
Forget our Nation's breaking load:
Now you could sleep on silver beds.—
(Bitter and dark was our abode.)
And so, for many a night you laughed,
And knew not of my hopeless prayer,

Birds have no consciousness of doom:
Yon thrush that serenades me daily
From scented snow of hawthorn bloom
Would not trill out his glee so gaily,
Could he foretell his songful breath
Would sadly soon be stilled in death.
II
Yon lambs that frolic on the lea
And incarnate the joy of life,
Would scarce disport them could they see
The shadow of the butcher's knife:
Oh Nature, with your loving ruth,
You spare them knowledge of Dark Truth.
III
To sad humanity alone,
(Creation's triumph ultimate)

Said I to Pain: "You would not dare
Do ill to me."
Said Pain: "Poor fool! Why should I care
Whom you may be?
To clown and king alike I bring
My meed of bane;
Why should you shirk my chastening?"
Said Pain.
II
Said I to Grief: "No tears have I,
Go on your way."
Said Grief: "Why should I pass you by,
While others pay?
All men must know the way of woe,
From saint to thief,

My mother
Foresaw deaths
And walked among
Chrysanthemums,
Winecolored,
Withe red rose,
The earthy blossoms.

My very breath
Disowned
In nights of study,
And page by page
I came on spring.

The rats run on the roof,
These words come hard---
Sadder than cockcrow
In a dreamless, earthen sleep.
The Christ, eternal
In the scented cold; my love,
Her hand on the sill
White, as if out of earth;
And spring, the sleep of the dead.

O MY Dark Rosaleen,
   Do not sigh, do not weep!
The priests are on the ocean green,
   They march along the deep.
There 's wine from the royal Pope,
   Upon the ocean green;
And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
   My Dark Rosaleen!
   My own Rosaleen!
Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
   My Dark Rosaleen!

Over hills, and thro' dales,

Sweet maiden, why disguise
The beauty of your eyes
With glasses black?
Although I'm well aware
That you are more than fair,
Allure you lack.
For as I stare at you
I ask if brown or blue
Your optics are?
But though I cannot see,
I'm sure that each must be
Bright as a star.
II
That may be green or grey,
'Tis very hard to say,
Or violet;
The lovelight in their glow
Alas, I'll never know,
To my regret.
In some rhyme-book I've read,

TAKE the harp, but very softly for our brother touch the strings:
Wind and wood shall help to wail him, waves and mournful mountain-springs.
Take the harp, but very softly, for the friend who grew so old
Through the hours we would not hear of—nights we would not fain behold!
Other voices, sweeter voices, shall lament him year by year,
Though the morning finds us lonely, though we sit and marvel here:
Marvel much while Summer cometh, trammelled with November wheat,
Gold about her forehead gleaming, green and gold about her feet;

Tread lightly through the forest branch
Quiet wanderer,
Disturb not the sleeping peace of cunning predator.
Too soon the hunter’s horn will sound the death-knell
of your tender breed.

Lap quickly the nourishing drops that flow in freshets
from a careless spring,
Tarry not long to quench your thirst
Lest your brittle life be fast extinguished
In the hungry jaws of the lurking beast.

Fly, fly at the sound of crackling leaf
The scent of death upon the air.
Stay not, wide-eyed in frozen fear

For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

Dark-eyed,
O woman of my dreams,
Ivory sandalled,
There is none like thee among the dancers,
None with swift feet.
I have not found thee in the tents,
In the broken darkness.
I have not found thee at the well-head
Among the women with pitchers.
Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark;
Thy face as a river with lights.

White as an almond are thy shoulders;
As new almonds stripped from the husk.
They guard thee not with eunuchs;
Not with bars of copper.