Sin and Death, those sisters two,
Two, two,
Sat together while dawned the morning.
Sister, marry! Your house will do,
Do, do,
For me, too, was Death's warning.

Sin was wedded, and Death was pleased,
Pleased, pleased,
Danced about them the day they married;
Night came on, she the bridegroom seized,
Seized, seized,
And away with her carried.

Sin soon wakened alone to weep,
Weep, weep.
Death sat near in the dawn of morning:
Him you love, I love too and keep,
Keep, keep.

He gloomily sat by the wall,
As gaily she danced with them all.
Her laughter's light spell
On every one fell;
His heartstrings were near unto rending,
But this there was none comprehending.

She fled from the house, when at eve
He came there to take his last leave.
To hide her she crept,
She wept and she wept;
Her life-hope was shattered past mending,
But this there was none comprehending.

Long years dragged but heavily o'er,
And then he came back there once more.
--Her lot was the best,
In peace and at rest;

Have you love for me,
Yours my love shall be,
While the days of life are flowing.
Short was summer's stay,
Grass now pales away,
With our play will come regrowing.

What you said last year
Sounds yet in my ear,--
Birdlike at the window sitting,
Tapping, trilling there,
Singing, in would bear
Joy the warmth of sun befitting.

Litli-litli-lu,
Do you hear me too,
Youth behind the birch-trees biding?
Now the words I send,
Darkness will attend,
May be you can give them guiding.

Take it not amiss!
Sang I of a kiss?

I will fight for my land,
I will work for my land,
Will it foster with love, in my faith, in my child.
I will eke every gain,
I will seek boot for bane,
From its easternmost bound to the western sea wild.

Here is sunshine enough,
Here is seed-earth enough,
If by us, if by us all love's duty were done.
Here is will to create;
Though our burdens be great,
We can lift up our land, if we all lift as one.

In the past we went wide

A still procession goes
Amid the battle's booming,
Its arm the red cross shows;
It prays in many forms of speech,
And, bending o'er the fallen,
Brings peace and home to each.

Not only is it found
Where bleed the wounds of battle,
But all the world around.
It is the love the whole world feels
In noble hearts and tender,
While gentle pity kneels;--

It is all labor's dread
Of war's mad waste and murder,
Praying that peace may spread;
It is all sufferers who heed
The sighing of a brother,
And know his sorrow's need;--

The dogs were whining; they sensed too well
The load upon the sled;
The rough-hewn box with the light-o'-love--
A girl, 'twas said.

A week ago, at the Palace Bar,
She sang the songs of France;
But many a heart is lead the while
The feet must dance.

Kisses she gave and kisses she took,
Sinned for her daily bread;
But all we knew as we eyed the box
Was: she was dead.

We placed upon it (How much it hurt
Only the good God knows!)
A gaud she had worn in her dusky hair--
A paper rose.

If this should never end--
This wandering in oblivious mood
Along a rutless road that leads
From wood to deeper wood--
This crunching with unheedful foot
Acorns, I think, and withered leaves ...
Perhaps a rotten root--

If this should never end--
This seeing with insentient eyes
Something that seems like earth, and, too,
Like overbending skies;
This feeling, well--that time is space,
Space, time; and each a pallid glass
In which Life sees her face--

If it should never end--
The road, the wandering and the feel

I

(Before He Comes)

Sweet under swooning blue and mellow mist
September waves of forest overflow
The hills with crimson, amaranth and gold.
Winds warm with the memory of scented hours
Dead Summer gathers in her leafy lap,
Rustle the distance with dim murmurings
That sink upon the air as soft as shades
Dropt from the overleaning clouds to earth;
While golden-rod and sedge and aster hushed
In sunny silence and the oblivion
Of life drawn from the insentient veins of Time,
Await the searing swoon of Autumn's reign.

I care not what they say who hold
We should speak but of life and joy;
I have met death in one I love,
Death lusting to destroy.

And I have fought him vein by vein,
Loosened his cold and creeping clutch,
Driven him from her--twice and thrice--
With might too much.

Yet with too little! for I know
That she at last will lie there still.
Then all my fire of love shall fail
To thaw that chill;

For it will freeze light from her eyes,
Pulse from her breast and from her soul
Me, whom no opiate of peace
Can e'er console.

I am not other than men are, you say?
But faulty and failing? And your love can lend
No glory of illusion to o'erlay
The lack, and make me seem one in whom blend
Nobilities wherein your heart may lose
All that it feels of flaw in me, or rues?

Can it so be? Did ever woman love
Whose faith wreathed not about the brow she chose
Aureolas illumining him above
All that another thinks he is, or knows?
I ask it bravely, for the way is long,
And, haloless, should I not lead you wrong?