Edmma Sosse LYING IN THE GRASS. Between two golden tufts of summer grass, Before me, dark against the fading sky, Brown English faces by the sun burnt red, And in my strong young living as I lie, I seem to move with them in harmony,— A fourth is mowing, and that fourth am I. The music of the scythes that glide and leap, The weary butterflies that droop their wings, The dreamy nightingale that hardly sings, Is mingling with the warm and pulsing blood Behind the mowers, on the amber air, And see that girl, with pitcher on her head, She waits the youngest mower. Now he goes; Her cheeks are redder than a wild blush-rose: But though they pass, and vanish, I am there. Ah! now the rosy children come to play, And romp and struggle with the new-mown hay; They know so little why the world is sad, They dig themselves warm graves and yet are glad ; Their muffled screams and laughter make me mad! I long to go and play among them there; The happy children! full of frank surprise, No wonder round those urns of mingled clays We find the little gods and loves portrayed, They knew, as I do now, what keen delight A strong man feels to watch the tender flight What pure sweet pleasure, and what sacred love, I do not hunger for a well-stored mind, I only wish to live my life, and find My life is like the single dewy star And if, among the noiseless grasses, Death I should not rise as one who sorroweth ; For I should pass, but all the world would be Full of desire and young delight and glee, And why should men be sad through loss of me? The light is flying; in the silver-blue The young moon shines from her bright window through: The mowers are all gone, and I go too. THE MÆNAD'S GRAVE. The girl who once, on Lydian heights, Would dance through whole tempestuous nights When no moon shines, Whose pipe of lotos featly blown Gave airs as shrill as Cotys' own, Who crowned with buds of ivy dark, Three times drained deep with amorous lips The wine-fed bowl of willow-bark, With silver tips, Nor sank, nor ceased, but shouted still Like some wild wind from hill to hill. She lies at last where poplars wave A soothing song; Farewell, it saith! Her days have done TO MY DAUGHTER. Thou hast the colors of the Spring, Yet have thy fleeting smiles confessed, That home is near at last; Oh sweet bewildered soul, I watch Fade, cold immortal lights, and make An angel is too fine a thing I smile, who could not smile, unless Passed, with the fading hours; I joy in every childish sign That proves the stranger less divine I smile, as one by night who seęs, Through mist of newly-budded trees, The clear Orion set, And knows that soon the dawn will fly In fire across the riven sky, And gild the woodlands wet. |