e love is seldom guest;
But in his coming years retain
This one sweet night that had no pain;
The skeleton's behind the door.

In vain you raise the wassail bowl,
And pledge your passion, soul to soul.
You hear the sweet bells ring in rhyme,
You wreath the room for Christmas time
In vain. The solemn silence falls,
The death watch ticks within the walls;
The skeleton taps on the door.

Then let him back into his place,
Let us sit out the old disgrace;
Nor seek the phantom now to lay,
That haunted us through every day;
For plainer is the ghost; useless
Is this pretence of happiness;
The skeleton taps on the door.

YOU WILL NOT COME AGAIN

The green has come to the leafless tree,
The earth brings forth its grain;
The flower has come for the honey bee:
You will not come again.

The birds have come to the empty nest,
All winter full of rain;
So music has come where the silence was:
You will not come again.

Love will come for the weak lambs' cry;
Alas for my heart's dull pain!
In the cycle of change I alone am lone:
You will not come again.

THE WRECKAGE

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes,
And I out in the storm,
And lo! the night had taken wings;
I dream me safe and warm.

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes,
A wreckers' light for me;
My heart is broken on the rocks;
I perish in the sea.

I AM THE WORLD

I am the song, that rests upon the cloud;
I am the sun:
I am the dawn, the day, the hiding shroud,
When dusk is done.

I am the changing colours of the tree;
The flower uncurled:
I am the melancholy of the sea;
I am the world.

The other souls that, passing in their place,
Each in their groove;
Out-stretching hands that chain me and embrace,
Speak and reprove.

"O atom of that law, by which the earth
Is poised and whirled;
Behold! you hurrying with the crowd assert
You are the world."

Am I not one with all the things that be
Warm in the sun?
All that my ears can hear, or eyes can see,
Till all be done.

Of song and shine, of changing leaf apart,
Of bud uncurled:
With all the senses pulsing at my heart,
I am the world.

One day the song that drifts upon the wind,
I sha