So to me, unconscious lying,
All unknown thy coming be,
Lest the sweet delight of dying
Bring life back again to me.

Unto him who finds thee hateful,
Death, thou art inhuman pain;
But to me, who dying gain,
Life is but a task ungrateful.

Come, then, with my wish complying,

All unheard thy coming be,

Lest the sweet delight of dying

Bring life back again to me.

IV.

Glove of black in white hand bare,

And about her forehead pale
Wound a thin transparent veil,
That doth not conceal her hair;
Sovereign attitude and air,
Cheek and neck alike displayed,
With coquettish charms arrayed,
Laughing eyes and fugitive ;—
This is killing men that live,
'Tis not mourning for the dead.

W

AFTERMATH.

HEN the Summer fields are mown,

When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;

With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,

Once again the fields we mow

And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;

Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds,

In the silence and the gloom.

EPIMETHEUS,

OR THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT.

H

AVE I dreamed? or was it real,
What I saw as in a vision,

When to marches hymeneal

In the land of the Ideal

Moved my thought o'er Fields Elysian?

What are these the guests whose glances Seemed like sunshine gleaming round me? These the wild, bewildering fancies,

That with dithyrambic dances

As with magic circles bound me?

Ah! how cold are their caresses!

Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms! Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses, And from loose, dishevelled tresses

Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measures
Filled my heart with secret rapture!
Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
Fade and perish with the capture?

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous, When they came to me unbidden;

Voices single, and in chorus,

Like the wild birds singing o'er us
In the dark of branches hidden.

Disenchantment!

Disillusion!

Must each noble aspiration Come at last to this conclusion, Jarring discord, wild confusion, Lassitude, renunciation ?

Not with steeper fall nor faster,
From the sun's serene dominions,

Not through brighter realms nor vaster,
In swift ruin and disaster,

Icarus fell with shattered pinions!

Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora!

Why did mighty Jove create thee Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora, Beautiful as young Aurora,

If to win thee is to hate thee?

No, not hate thee! for this feeling
Of unrest and long resistance

Is but passionate appealing,
A prophetic whisper stealing

O'er the chords of our existence.

Him whom thou dost once enamour,
Thou, beloved, never leavest;
In life's discord, strife, and clamour,
Still he feels thy spell of glamour;
Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest.

Weary hearts by thee are lifted,

Struggling souls by thee are strengthened,

Clouds of fear asunder rifted,

Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,

Lives, like days in summer, lengthened!