Close they breathed and yet were wrapt away
In their magic from all human day;

Fresh their kisses fell,

Cool with happiness, for happy things
Freshen for their bliss, and may not dwell
In the heat our carnal pleasure brings.

Solemn rolled the breezes overhead,
Dirgelike came the dove and nightingale
Through the never-ending, solemn wail:
Cathal could not hear the dole that spread
Through the forest-ways;

For, like moss and briar,

He had now no life of fret or fire,

Silent with the silent Fays,

With the windflowers, with the sweet-fern shootlets, With the leaf-green Presences of trees.

After Soufrière.

It is not grief or pain;

But like the even dropping of the rain

That thou art gone.

It is not like a grave

To weep upon;

But like the rise and falling of a wave When the vessel's gone.

It is like the sudden void
When the city is destroyed

Where the sun shone:

It is neither grief nor pain,
But the wide waste come again.

She Mingled Me Rue and Roses.

SHE mingled me rue and roses,
And I found my bliss complete:
The roses are gone,

But the rue lives on,

The bitter that lived with the sweet.

Life will mingle you rue and roses;
The roses will fall at your feet:
But deep in the rue

That their leaves bestrew

The bitter will smell of the sweet.

An Unfinished Picture.

'Tis Mary the milkmaid singing,

A-singing, a-singing

So rarely and sweet that the lark at her feet,
All ready to start with a song in his heart,
Presses closer the nest with his warm little breast,
Forgetting his lay as he drinks in the sweet

Pure music of Mary singing.

'Tis Mary the milkmaid singing,
A-singing, a-singing

So rarely and plain that a man in the lane
Grows flushed in the face standing still in his place,
And moves his red lips as the melody slips
In a lovely and tendery womanly strain
From Mary the milkmaid singing.

'Tis Richard the keeper whistling,

A-whistling, a-whistling

So rarely and clear for the milkmaid to hear! And she with a start puts her hand to her heart That leaps in the nest of that tremulous breast Beating time to the rollicking tune drawing near With Richard the keeper whistling.

A Petition.

ONCE in the daring days,

Born out of strife, Gods of my fashioning Sprang into life

Gods of high flight that scorn

Death as he plods,

Wonderful, winged and wild,

Glittering gods!

Yet were they weak as reeds,
Bending for this,

Only a woman's eyes,
Only her kiss.

Then did a god in me,

Youngest and fair,

Bind me with luminous

Tangles of hair;

Drave me to roam at night

Under the moon
Till it was winter-time

Even in June!

Then in his treachery,

Traitor and spy!

Snared her away I loved,

Left me to die.