Hermione

WHITH in her snowy stone, and cold,
With azure veins and shining arms,
Pygmalion doth his bride behold,
Rapt on her pure and sculptured charms.

Ah ! in those half-divine old days
Love still worked miracles for men ;
The gods taught lovers wondrous ways
To breathe a soul in marble then.

He gazed, he yearned, he vowed, he wept.
Some secret witchery touched her breast;
And, laughing April tears, she stepped
Down to his arms and lay at rest.

Dear artist of the storied land!
I too have loved a heart of stone.
What was thy charm of voice or hand,
Thy secret spell, Pygmalion ?

IF quiet autumn mornings would not come,
With golden light, and haze, and harvest wain,
And spices of the dead leaves at my feet;
If sunsets would not burn through cloud, and stain
With fading rosy flush the dusky dome ;
If the young mother would not croon that sweet
Old sleep-song, like the robin’s in the rain ;
If the great cloud-ships would not float and drift
Across such blue all the calm afternoon ;
If night were not so hushed ; or if the moon
Might pause forever by that pearly rift,
Nor fill the garden with its flood again;
If the world were not what it still must be,
Then might I live forgetting love and thee.

THE letter came at last. I carried it
To the deep woods unopened. All the trees
Were hushed, as if they waited what was writ,
And feared for me. Silent they let me sit
Among them ; leaning breathless while I read,
And bending down above me where they stood.
A long way off I heard the delicate tread
Of the light-footed loiterer, the breeze,
Come walking toward me in the leafy wood.

I burned the page that brought me love and woe.
At first it writhed to feel the spires of flame,
Then lay quite still; and o’er each word there came
Its white ghost of the ash, and burning slow
Each said: “You cannot kill the spirit; know
That we shall haunt you, even till heart and brain
Lie as we lie in ashes — all in vain.”

IN the deep night a little bird
Wakens, or dreams he is awake :
Cheerily clear one phrase is heard,
And you almost feel the morning break.

In the deep dark of loss and wrong,
One face like a lovely dawn will thrill,
And all night long at my heart a song
Suddenly stirs and then is still.