It waits till the daylight passes And closes them one by one.

I have asked why it closed at even, And I know what it wished to say: There are stars all night in the heaven, And I am the star of day.

"WHEN I AM DEAD"

WHEN I am dead, my spirit

Shall wander far and free,
Through realms the dead inherit
Of earth and sky and sea;
Through morning dawn and gloaming,
By midnight moons at will,

By shores where the waves are foaming,
By seas where the waves are still.
I, following late behind you,
In wingless sleepless flight,
Will wander till I find you,
In sunshine or twilight;
With silent kiss for greeting
On lips and eyes and head,
In that strange after-meeting
Shall love be perfected.

We shall lie in summer breezes

And pass where whirlwinds go,
And the northern blast that freezes
Shall bear us with the snow.
We shall stand above the thunder,
And watch the lightnings hurled
At the misty mountains under,

Of the dim forsaken world.
We shall find our footsteps' traces,
And passing hand in hand
By old familiar places,

We shall laugh, and understand.

THEN AND NOW

THERE never were such radiant noons,
Such roses, such fair weather,
Such nightingales, such mellow moons,
As while we were together!

But now the suns are poor and pale,
The cloudy twilight closes,
The mists have choked the nightingale,
The blight has killed the roses.

Demand of lilies wherefore they are white, Extort her crimson secret from the rose, But ask not of the Muse that she disclose The meaning of the riddle of her might : Somewhat of all things sealed and recon dite,

Save the enigma of herself, she knows. The master could not tell, with all his lore,

Wherefore he sang, or whence the mandate sped:

Even as the linnet sings, so I, he said ;Ah, rather as the imperial nightingale, That held in trance the ancient Attic shore, And charms the ages with the notes that o'er

All woodland chants immortally prevail ! And now, from our vain plaudits greatly

fled,

He with diviner silence dwells instead,
And on no earthly sea with transient roar,
Unto no earthly airs, he trims his sail,
But far beyond our vision and our hail
Is heard forever and is seen no more.

No more, O never now,

Lord of the lofty and the tranquil brew
Whereon nor snows of time

Have fallen, nor wintry rime,

Shall men behold thee, sage and mage sublime.

Once, in his youth obscure,

The maker of this verse, which shall endure

By splendor of its theme that cannot die,
Beheld thee eye to eye,

And touched through thee the hand
Of every hero of thy race divine,

Even to the sire of all the laurelled line,
The sightless wanderer on the Ionian strand,
With soul as healthful as the poignant

brine,

I see the hands a nation's lyre that strung, The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God.

The seasons change, the winds they shift and veer;

The grass of yesteryear

Is dead; the birds depart, the groves decay:

Empires dissolve and peoples disappear:
Song passes not away.

Captains and conquerors leave a little dust,
And kings a dubious legend of their reign;
The swords of Cæsars, they are less than
rust:

The poet doth remain.

Dead is Augustus, Maro is alive;

And thou, the Mantuan of our age and clime,

Like Virgil shalt thy race and tongue survive, Bequeathing no less honeyed words to time,

Embalmed in amber of eternal rhyme, And rich with sweets from every Muse's hive;

While to the measure of the cosmic rune For purer ears thou shalt thy lyre attune, And heed no more the hum of idle praise In that great calm our tumults cannot reach,

Master who crown'st our immelodious days With flower of perfect speech.

Till he can cast this earth behind

And breathe in heaven secure.

We sing of Life, with stormy breath
That shakes the lute's distempered string:
We sing of Love, and loveless Death
Takes up the song we sing.

And born in toils of Fate's control,
Insurgent from the womb, we strive
With proud, unmanumitted soul

To burst the golden gyve.

Thy spirit knows nor bounds nor bars;
On thee no shreds of thraldom hang:
Not more enlarged, the morning stars
Their great Te Deum sang.

But I am fettered to the sod,
And but forget my bonds an hour;
In amplitude of dreams a god,
A slave in dearth of power.

And fruitless knowledge clouds my soul,
And fretful ignorance irks it more.
Thou sing'st as if thou knew'st the whole,
And lightly held'st thy lore!

Sing, for with rapturous throes of birth,
And arrowy labyrinthine sting,
There riots in the veins of Earth

The ichor of the Spring!

Sing, for the beldam Night is fled,
And Morn the bride is wreathed and gay:
Sing, while her revelling lord o'erhead
Leads the wild dance of day!

The serpent Winter sleeps upcurled :
Sing, till I know not if there be
Aught else in the dissolving world
But melody and thee!

Sing, as thou drink'st of heaven thy fill,
All hope, all wonder, all desire
Creation's ancient canticle

To which the worlds conspire!

Somewhat as thou, Man once could sing,
In porches of the lucent morn,
Ere he had felt his lack of wing,

Or cursed his iron bourn.

The springtime bubbled in his throat, The sweet sky seemed not far above,

WHEN you are dead some day, my dear,
Quite dead and under ground,
Where you will never see or hear
A summer sight or sound,
What shall remain of you in death,
When all our songs to you
Are silent as the bird whose breath
Has sung the summer through?

I wonder, will you ever wake,
And with tired eyes again
Live for your old life's little sake
An age of joy or pain?
Shall some stern destiny control
That perfect form, wherein
I hardly see enough of soul
To make your life a sin?

For, we have heard, for all men born
One harvest-day prepares

Its golden garners for the corn,
And fire to burn the tares;
But who shall gather into sheaves,
Or turn aside to blame

The poppies' puckered helpless leaves,
Blown bells of scarlet flame?

No hate so hard, no love so bold
To seek your bliss or woe;
You are too sweet for hell to hold,
And heaven would tire you so.
A little while your joy shall be,

And when you crave for rest The earth shall take you utterly Again into her breast.