Chapter IV

The hills that Morning's footsteps wake; The waves that take A brightness from the Eve; the woods O'er which Night broods, Their spirits have, whose parts are one With his whose mortal part is done. Whose part is done!

AT LAST

What shall be said to him,
Now he is dead?
Now that his eyes are dim,
Low lies his head?
What shall be said to him,
Now he is dead?

One word to whisper of
Low in his ear;
Sweet, but the one word "love"
Haply he'll hear.
One word to whisper of
Low in his ear.

What shall be given him,
Now he is dead?
Now that his eyes are dim,
Low lies his head?
What shall be given him,
Now he is dead?

Hope, that life long denied
Here to his heart,
Sweet, lay it now beside,
Never to part.
Hope, that life long denied
Here to his heart.

A DARK DAY

Though Summer walks the world to-day
With corn-crowned hours for her guard,
Her thoughts have clad themselves in gray,
And wait in Autumn's weedy yard.

And where the larkspur and the phlox
Spread carpets wheresoe'er she pass,
She seems to stand with sombre locks
Bound bleak with fog-washed zinnias.--

Fall's terra-cotta-colored flowers,
Whose disks the trickling wet has tinged
With dingy lustre when the bower's
Thin, flame-flecked leaves the frost has singed;

Or with slow feet, 'mid gaunt gold blooms
Of marigolds her fingers twist,
She seems to pass with Fall's perfumes,
And dreams of sullen rain and mist.

FALL

Sad-hearted spirit of the solitudes, Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods! Gray-gowned with fog, gold-girdled with the gloom Of tawny twilights; burdened with perfume Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist; And all the beauty of the fire-kissed Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way, Odorous of death and drowsy with decay. I think of thee as seated 'mid the showers Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers,-- The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune A singer gives her soul's wild melody,-- Watching the squirrel store his granary. Or, 'mid old orchards I have pictured thee: Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back; One lovely shoulder bathed with gipsy black; Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweet The rosy russets tumbled at thy feet. Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers? A heart-sick bird, that sang of happier hours? A cricket dirging days that soon must die? Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?

UNDERTONE

Ah me! too soon the Autumn comes Among these purple-plaintive hills! Too soon among the forest gums Premonitory flame she spills, Bleak, melancholy flame that kills.

Her white fogs veil the morn that rims With wet the moonflow'r's elfin moons; And, like exhausted starlight, dims The last slim lily-disk; and swoons With scents of hazy afternoons.

Her gray mists haunt the sunset skies, And build the west's cadaverous fire, Where Sorrow sits with lonely eyes, And hands that wake her ancient lyre, Beside the ghost of dead Desire.