lent
Where, with it, blent
A maiden's o'er her instrument;
While all the night,
From vale to height,
Was filled with echoes of delight.
And all our dreams
Were lit with gleams
Of that lost land of reedy streams.
Along whose brim
Forever swim
Pan's lilies, laughing up at him.
[Illustration]
IV
But yesterday!...
O blooms of May,
And summer roses--where-away?
O stars above;
And lips of love,
And all the honeyed sweets thereof!--
O lad and lass,
And orchard pass,
And briered lane, and daisied grass!
O gleam and gloom,
And woodland bloom,
And breezy breaths of all perfume!--
No more for me
Or mine shall be
Thy raptures--save in memory,--
No more--no more--
Till through the Door
Of Glory gleam the days of yore.
[Illustration]
SONG OF PARTING
Say farewell, and let me go;
Shatter every vow!
All the future can bestow
Will be welcome now!
And if this fair hand I touch
I have worshipped overmuch,
It was my mistake--and so,
Say farewell, and let me go.
Say farewell, and let me go:
Murmur no regret,
Stay your tear-drops ere they flow--
Do not waste them yet!
They might pour as pours the rain,
And not wash away the pain:
I have tried them and I know.--
Say farewell, and let me go.
Say farewell, and let me go:
Think me not untrue--
True as truth is, even so
I am true to you!
If the ghost of love may stay
Where my fond heart dies to-day,
I am with you alway--so,
Say farewell, and let me go.
[Illustration]
OUR KIND OF A MAN
I
The kind of a man for you and me!
He faces the world unflinchingly,
And smites, as long as the wrong resists,
With a knuckled faith and force like fists:
He lives the life he is preaching of,
And loves where most is the need of love;
His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,
And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;
The light shines out where the clouds were dim,
And the widow's prayer goes up for him;
The latch is clicked at the hovel door
And the sick man sees the sun once more,
And out o'er the barren fields he sees
Springing blossoms and waving trees,
Feeling as only the dying may,
That God's own servant has come that way,
Smoothing the path as it still winds on
Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.
II
The kind of a man for me and you!
However little of worth we do
He credits full, and abides in trust
That time will teach us how
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