core; Yet they momently cool and dampen and deaden, The crimson turns golden, the gold turns leaden, Hardening into one black bar And over it, visible spirit of dew, - Or surely the miracle vanisheth, The new moon, tranced in unspeakable blue! | Of that long cloud-bar in the West, Here is no startle of dreaming bird Nor noise of any living thing, Such as one hears by night on shore; So they trembled to life, and, doubtfully Feeling their way to my sense, sang, "Say whether They sit all day by the greenwood tree, The lover and loved, as it wont to be, When we-" But grief conquered, Soft as the dews that fell that night, The lamp's clear gleam flits up the stair; and all together They swelled such weird murmur as haunts a shore Of some planet dispeopled, more!" Then from deep in the past, as seemed to me, The strings gathered sorrow and sang forsaken, "One lover still waits 'neath the green wood tree, But 't is dark," and they shuddered, "where lieth she Dark and cold! Forever must one be taken ?" But I groaned, "O harp of all ruth bereft, This Scripture is sadder, the other left'!" There murmured, as if one strove to speak, And tears came instead; then the sad tones wandered And faltered among the uncertain chords In a troubled doubt between sorrow and words; At last with themselves they questioned and pondered, "Hereafter?- who knoweth?" and so they sighed Down the long steps that lead to silence and died. AUF WIEDERSEHEN! SUMMER. THE little gate was reached at last, And said, "Auf wiedersehen!" Sweet piece of bashful maiden art! The English words had seemed too But these - they drew us heart to heart, She said, "Auf wiedersehen!" PALINODE. AUTUMN. STILL thirteen years: 't is autumn now Sighs not,-"Auf wiedersehen!" That now is void, and dank with rain, And one, -0, hope more frail than foam ! The bird to his deserted home Sings not,-"Auf wiedersehen!" The loath gate swings with rusty creak pain; There came a parting, when the weak Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith, If earth another grave must bear, Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain, And something whispers my despair, That, from an orient chamber there, Floats down. "Auf wiedersehen!" AFTER THE BURIAL. YES, faith is a goodly anchor; But, after the shipwreck, tell me In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, Then better one spar of Memory, To the spirit its splendid conjectures, Immortal? I feel it and know it, There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard Would scarce stay a child in his race, Your logic, my friend, is perfect, I keep hearing that, and not you. Console if you will, I can bear it ; It is pagan; but wait till you feel it, sion Tears down to our primitive rock. "I brighten at touch of your feet." "We know the practised finger," Said the books, "that seems like And the shy page rustled the secret Sang the pillow, "My down once quivered On nightingales' throats that flew Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz To gather quaint dreams for you." Ah me, where the Past sowed heart'sease, The Present plucks rue for us men! I come back that scar unhealing Was not in the churchyard then. : But, I think, the house is unaltered, Unaltered! Alas for the sameness That makes the change but more! "T is a dead man I see in the mirrors, 'Tis his tread that chills the floor! To learn such a simple lesson, Need I go to Paris and Rome, That the many make the household, But only one the home? "T was just a womanly presence, An influence unexprest, But a rose she had worn, on my gravesod Were more than long life with the rest! "T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle, "T was nothing that I can phrase, But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious, And put on her looks and ways. For it died that autumn morning That looks over woodland and corn. Thou only aspirest the more, To me 't is not cheer thou art singing: In thy boughs forever clinging, Of waves on the shore As thou musest still of the ocean And the sailor wrenched from the broken mast, Do I, in this vague emotion, Do I forebode, alas! The ship-building longer and wearier, A MOOD. I Go to the ridge in the forest I haunted in days gone by, Pine in the distance, Right for the zenith heading, Thine arms to the influence spreading THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. I. BIORN'S BECKONERS. Now Biörn, the son of Heriulf, had ill days Because the heart within him seethed with blood That would not be allayed with any toil, Whether of war or hunting or the oar, But was anhungered for some joy untried: For the brain grew not weary with the limbs, But, while they slept, still hammered like a Troll, Building all night a bridge of solid dream Between him and some purpose of his soul, |