Chapter II

When the dawn's first lines
Show dimly through the pines
Along the mountain;
When the stars are few,
And starry lies the dew
Around the fountain:--

Who will, may hear, within her leafy dwelling,
The spirit of the oak-tree, great and strong,
Its romance to the wildwood streamlet telling,
That is no stream but some descended song.

LILLITA

Can I forget how, when you stood
'Mid orchards whence the bloom had fled,
Stars made the orchards seem a-bud,
And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead
With shining ghosts of blossoms dead?

Or when you bowed, a lily tall,
Above your drowsy lilies, slim,
Transparent pale, that by the wall
Like cups of moonlight seemed to swim,
Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim?

And in the cloud that lingered low--
A silent pallor in the west--
There stirred and beat a golden glow,
Like some great heart that could not rest,
A heart of gold within its breast.

Your heart, your soul were in the wild:
You loved to hear the whippoorwill

Lament its love, when, dewy mild,
The harvest scent made musk the hill.
You loved to walk, where oft had trod
The red deer, o'er the fallen hush
Of Fall's torn leaves, when th' ivy-tod
Hung frosty by each berried bush.

Still do the whippoorwills complain
Above your listless lilies, where
The moonlight their white faces stain;
Still flows the dreaming streamlet there,
Whispering of rest an easeful air....

O music of the falling rain,
At night unto her painless rest
Sound sweet not sad! and make her fain
To feel the wildflowers on her breast
Lift moist, pure faces up again
To breathe a prayer in fragrance blessed.

Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed
Old, gnarly arms above her tomb,
Where oft I sit and dream her ghost
Smiles, like a blossom, through the gloom;
Dim as a mist,--that summer lost,--
Of tangled starbeam and perfume.

MIRIAM

White clouds and buds and birds and bees,
Low wind-notes, piped down southern seas,
Brought thee, a rose-white offering,
A flower-like baby with the spring.

She, with her April, gave to thee
A soul of winsome witchery;
Large, heavenly eyes and sparkling whence
Shines the young mind's soft influence;
Where love's eternal innocence,
And smiles and tears of maidenhood,
Gleam with the dreams of hope and good.

She, with the dower of her May
Gave thee a nature strong to sway
Man's higher feelings; and a pride
Where all pride's smallness is denied.
Limbs wrought of lilies; and a face
Made of a rose-bloom; and the grace
Of water, that thy limbs express
In each chaste billow of thy dress.

She, with her dreamy June, brought down
Night-deeps of hair that are thy crown;
A voice like low winds musical,
Or streams that in the moonlight fall
O'er bars of pearl; and in thy heart,--
True gold,--she set Joy's counterpart,
A gem, that in thy fair face gleams,
All radiance, when it speaks or dreams;
And in thy soul the jewel Truth
Whose beauty is perpetual youth.

TWO DAYS

I

The slanted storm tossed at their feet
The frost-nipped autumn leaves;
The park's high pines were caked with sleet,
And ice-spears armed the eaves.
They strolled adown the pillared pines,
To part where wet and twisted vines
About the gate-posts blew and beat.
She watched him riding through the rain
Along the river's misty shore,
And turned with lips that laughed disdain:
"To meet no more!"

II

'Mid heavy roses weighed with dew
The chirping crickets hid;
I' the honeysuckle avenue
Sang the green katydid.
Soft southern stars smiled through the pines.
Through stately windows, draped with vines,
The drifting moonlight's silver blew.
She stared upon a face, now dead,
A soldier calm that wore;
Despair sobbed on the lips that said,
"To meet no more."

MOONRISE AT SEA

I

With lips that had hushed all their fury
Of foam and of winds that were strewn,
Of storm and of turbulent hurry,
The ocean sighed; heralding soon
A ship of miraculous glory,
Of pearl and of fire--the moon.

II

And up from the East, with a slipping
And shudder and clinging of light,
With a loos'ning of clouds and a dipping,
Outbound for the Havens of Night,
With a silence of sails and a dripping,
The vessel came, wonderful white.