ACTEA

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 the last bitterness was past, she bore
Her singing Cæsar to the Garden Hill,
Her fallen pitiful dead emperor.
She lifted up the beggar's cloak he wore
- The one thing living that he would not

kill – And on those lips of his that sang no more, That world-loathed head which she found

lovely still, Her cold lips closed, in death she had her

will. Oh wreck of the lost human soul left free To gorge the beast thy mask of manhood

screened ! Because one living thing, albeit a slave, Shed those hot tears on thy dishonored

grave, Although thy curse be as the shoreless sea, Because she loved, thou art not wholly

fiend.

IMPERATOR AUGUSTUS

Is this the man by whose decree abide
The lives of countless nations, with the

trace Of fresh tears wet upon the hard cold

face ? – He wept, because a little child had

died. They set a marble image by his side, A sculptured Eros, ready for the chase ; It wore the dead boy's features, and the

grace Of pretty ways that were the old man's

pride. And so he smiled, grown softer now, and

tired Of too much empire, and it seemed a joy Fondly to stroke and pet the curly head, The smooth round limbs so strangely like

the dead, To kiss the white lips of his marble boy And call by name his little heart's-desired.

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.

THE DAISY

With little white leaves in the grasses,

pread wide for the smile of the sun,