None would believe, in very truth, A maiden was so fair, they said.

How could they know they gave to me The daily hope which made me fair, Sweet promises of things to be,

The happy things I was to share.

The flowers painted round my face,
The magic seas and skies above,
And many a fair enchanted place

Full of the summer time and love.

They set me in a fairy-land,

So much more real than they knew, And I was slow to understand

The pictures could not all come true.

But one by one, they died somehow,

The waking dreams which kept me glad,

And as I sat, they told me now,

None would believe a maid so sad.

They paint me still, but now I sit
Just for my neck and shoulder lines,
And for the little lingering bit

Of color in my hair that shines.

And as a figure worn and strange

Into their groups I sometimes stray, To break the light, to mark their range Of sun and shade, of grave and gay.

And evermore they come and go,
With life and hope so sweet and high,—
In all the world how should they know
There is no one so tired as I.

OCTOBER

FROM falling leaf to falling leaf,
How strange it was, through all the year,
In all its joy and all its grief,

You did not know I loved you dear; Through all the winter-time and spring, You smiled and watched me come and go, Through all the summer blossoming,

How strange it was you did not know.

Your face shone from my earth and sky,
Your voice was in my heart always,
Days were as dreams when you were by,
And nights of dreaming linked the days;
In my great joy I craved so much,

My life lay trembling at your hand,
I prayed you for one magic touch,
How strange you did not understand!

From leaf to leaf, the trees are bare,

The autumn wind is cold and stern, And outlined in the clear sharp air

Lies a new world for me to learn; Stranger than all, dear friend, to-day, You take my hand and do not know A thousand years have passed away, Since last year when I loved you so.

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that never may die.

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose, Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,

Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew: For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam-I and you.

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more: Soon far from the rose and the lily, the fret of the flames, would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea.