SHE cometh — hark!
I hear the brittle twig beneath her feet,
And now I mark
Her even step that stirs the rustling leaf:
Ah, truant heart,
Where is thy promise now to be discreet?
False friend thou art;
Thy strength is but a surge that breaks on passion's hidden reef.

O fatal surge!
That many a good ship beareth down to death!
Why dost thou urge
My driven spirit with thy sweeping breath?
O pleasant tide!
That lifts the heart and overbears the will!
Dark ocean wide
On which the fated soul drifts out for destined good or ill!

She cometh near!
I see the plume poised lightly on her head,
And I can hear
Her rustling skirts keep measure with her tread.
O measure sweet!
O siren's song! that thrills the blood like flame!
Turn, witching feet!
Turn back! turn back!! Return again along the path ye came.

Fresh blossoms white —
Plucked from the orchard — deck her bosom fair.
A trembling light
Breaks from the golden glory of her hair;
The new-leafed trees,
With outstretched arms, stand mute and motionless;
The sighing breeze,
Faint with desire, swoons, listless in the cool folds of her dress.

She walks the earth
Like some young goddess — risen with the sun,
Full grown at birth;
Filled with immortal longings just begun.
Oh, bid her stay;
Sweet silence of the breathing wood, speak thou
For me, I pray!
Woo her to linger ever, even as she lingers now.

Can she not hear
The beating of my heart? Is there no sound
Comes to her ear,
No voice that cries from passion's battle-ground,
Lest she be told
That for her sake a fiercer fight is waged
Than when of old
The classic walls of Troy with flaming war's red tumult raged?

She goes — alas!
Ye faithless zephyrs wherefore did ye fly
And let her pass?
Without one word — one look — She hath gone by —
O senseless stone,
On which I rest! more of my soul's regret
To thee is known
Than she will know. Teach me, I pray thee, how I should forget.

Thou noisy brook,
Be quiet for a little, while I read
From fate's dim book.
My blotted page. We mortals here have need
Of many things
Which fate denies us — kindly — so they say;
Such wisdom brings
No comfort to the hungering soul that casts all creeds away.

Here, at thy side,
Will I sit down and weep, and let my tears
Float with thy tide,
And listen to thy song — for sorrow hears
With quicker sense
Than careless joy, and seeks in field and stream
A recompense
For harsher notes, which fret the chords of music's wonted dream.

Ye birds, sing on!
Send up your wild, heart-breaking strains of mirth!
Hope, now, hath gone.
No more her wings shall lift me from the earth.
Ye shall not fall
Unnoticed to the ground; but it may be
This shall be all —
This incomplete, mistaken life — all that shall come to me.

With regnant mien,
Far on her path she walks, light-hearted, free,
Her pulse, I ween,
Will never quicken with a thought of me.
O voiceless wood!
Hast thou no balm from Nature's healing breast
Will bring me good?
Hast thou no sweet enchantment of forgetfulness and rest?

How sweet the breath
Steals from the orchard, loitering through the trees!
I doubt if death
Be more than pleasure lost in things like these.
But come, my heart,
Turn we aside; life can not all be vain.
Love is not Art.
But Art is love, which works and waits, through patient years of pain.

The glistening drop
Shines from the spider's web upon the grass,
The clover's top,
Bent by the clinging bee, nods as I pass.
And now I hear
The yellow breasted lark's soul-thrilling cry.
Sweet, sharp, and clear
The red-bird calls — the startled wren flits through the leaves near by.

The rugged hills
Put on the tender garments of the spring.
The blue-bird trills
Her reawakening note. With steady wing
The watchful crow
Steers on his course. Far in the wood the dove,
Sad-voiced and low,
Sends forth her soft, complaining song of unrequited love.