on my way their beauty left,
As if the darkness of the night
Were by some planet's rising cleft.

And peace hath in my heart been born,
That shut from memory all life's ills,
In walking with the blue-eyed morn
Among the white mists of the hills.
And joyous, I have heard the wails
That heave the wild woods to and fro,
When autumn's crown of crimson pales
Beneath the winter's hand of snow.

Once, leaving all its lovely mates,
On yonder lightning-withered tree,
That vainly for the springtime waits,
A wild bird perched and sang for me.
And listening to the clear sweet strain
That came like sunshine o'er the day
My forehead's hot and burning pain,
Fell like a crown of thorns away.

But shadows from the western height
Are stretching to the valley low,
For through the cloudy gates of night
The day is passing, solemn, slow.
While o'er yon blue and rocky steep
The moon, half hidden in the mist,
Waits for the loving wind to keep
The promise of the twilight tryst--

Come thou, whose meek blue eyes divine,
What thou, and only thou canst see,
I wait to put my hand in thine--
What answer sendest thou to me?
Ah! thoughts of one whom helpless blight
Had pushed from all fair hope apart,
Making it thenceforth hers to fight
The stormy battles of the heart.

Well, I have no complaint of wrath,
And no reproaches for my doom;
Spring cannot blossom in thy path
So bright as I would have it bloom.

IV.

O sorrowful and faded years,
Gathered away a time ago,
How could your deaths the fount of tears
Have troubled to an overflow?
I muse upon the songs I made
Beneath the maple's yellow limbs,
When down the aisles of thin cold shade
Sounded the wild birds' farewell hymns.

But no sad spell my spirit binds
As when, in days on which it broods,
October hunted with the winds
Along the reddening sunset woods.
Alas, the seasons come and go,
Brightly or dimly rise and set
The days, but stir no fount of woe,
Nor kindle hope, nor wake regret.

I sit with the complaining night,
And underneath the waning moon,
As when the lilies large and white
Lay round the forehead of the June.
What time within a snowy grave
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