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Death

Our death is in the cool of night,
our life is in the pool of day.
The darkness glows, I’m drowning,
the day has tired me with light.

Over my head in leaves grown deep,
sings the young nightingale.
It only sings of love there,
I hear it in my sleep.

Dearest, dearest

Dearest, dearest,
Bother the slow hours
That hold and keep me
From the leafy bowers
You make more lovely than a storm of flowers.
Dearest, dearest,
If they let me go
I'd hasten to you
Where the waters flow
In among the shadows and the dreams we know.

Dear love, good-night

DEAR love, good-night. And, tender sleep
,Seal up her lids like these drowsed flowers,
To make day fair when they unclose.
Be hushed around her, Night, and keep
Thy silent guard on her repose;
But speed thine hours.

Dear love, sleep on. This weary space
I wake and long for day and thee,
And count the slow stars from their west.
Sleep while I hunger for thy face,
Sleep, dearest, in unbroken rest;
But dream of me.

Dear Love, Do You Remember

I

Dearest one, do you remember,
As we sat side by side,
How you told me that you loved me,
Asked me to be your bride.
And you told me we'd be happy,
Through all the years to come,
If we ever would prove faithful,
As in the days when we were young.
Oh! how well do I remember,
The kind and loving words,
And now as I sat dreaming,
The thoughts my memory stirs.
But the days have passed before me,
And the scenes of long ago,
But I can never forget the
Days that have passed o'er.
II
Oh! how clearly I remember

Dear Heart, Why Will You Use Me So

Dear heart, why will you use me so?
Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
Still are you beautiful -- - but O,
How is your beauty raimented!

Through the clear mirror of your eyes,
Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss,
Desolate winds assail with cries
The shadowy garden where love is.

And soon shall love dissolved be
When over us the wild winds blow -- -
But you, dear love, too dear to me,
Alas! why will you use me so?

Dead Men's Love


There was a damned successful Poet;
There was a Woman like the Sun.
And they were dead. They did not know it.
They did not know their time was done.
They did not know his hymns
Were silence; and her limbs,
That had served Love so well,
Dust, and a filthy smell.

And so one day, as ever of old,
Hands out, they hurried, knee to knee;
On fire to cling and kiss and hold
And, in the other's eyes, to see
Each his own tiny face,
And in that long embrace
Feel lip and breast grow warm

Dead Love

God let me listen to your voice,
And look upon you for a space —
And then he took your voice away,
And dropped a veil before your face.
God let me look within your eyes,
And touch for once your clinging hand,
And then he left me all alone,
And took you to the Silent Land.
I cannot weep, I cannot pray,
My heart has very silent grown,
I only watch how God gives love,
And then leaves lovers all alone.

Dead Love

Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark,
White as a dead stark-stricken dove:
None that pass by him pause to mark
Dead love.

His heart, that strained and yearned and strove
As toward the sundawn strives the lark,
Is cold as all the old joy thereof.

Dead men, re-risen from dust, may hark
When rings the trumpet blown above:
It will not raise from out the dark
Dead love.

Dead Love

Mother of the unfortunate, mystic form,
Who calm, immutable, like oldest fate,
Sittest, where through the sombre swinging gate
Moans immemorial life's encircling storm.
My heart, sore stricken by grief's leaden arm,
Lags like a weary pilgrim knocking late,
And sigheth--toward thee staggering with its weight--
Behold Love conquered by thy son, the worm!

He stung him mid the roses' purple bloom,
The Rose of roses, yea, a thing so sweet,
Haply to stay blind Change's flying feet,
And stir with pity the unpitying tomb.

Dead Love

Oh never weep for love that’s dead
Since love is seldom true
But changes his fashion from blue to red,
From brightest red to blue,
And love was born to an early death
And is so seldom true.

Then harbour no smile on your bonny face
To win the deepest sigh.
The fairest words on truest lips
Pass on and surely die,
And you will stand alone, my dear,
When wintry winds draw nigh.

Sweet, never weep for what cannot be,
For this God has not given.
If the merest dream of love were true