pass
With lips that seem to moan "Alas."

LAST DAYS.

Aye! heartbreak of the tattered hills,
And mourning of the raining sky!
Heartbreak and mourning, since God wills,
Are mine, and God knows why!

The brutal wind that herds the storm
In hail-big clouds that freeze along,
As this gray heart are doubly warm
With thrice the joy of song.

I held one dearer than each day
Of life God sets in limpid gold--
What thief hath stole that gem away
To leave me poor and old!

The heartbreak of the hills be mine,
Of trampled twig and mired leaf,
Of rain that sobs through thorn and pine
An unavailing grief!

The sorrow of the childless skies'
_Good-nights_, long said, yet never said,
As when I kissed my child's blue eyes
And lips ice-dumb and dead.

THE ROMANZA.

In a kingdom of mist and moonlight,
Or ever the world was known,
Past leagues of unsailed water,
There reigned a king with a daughter
That shone like a starry stone.

The day grew out o' the moonlight;
But never a day was there.
The king was wise as hoary,
And his daughter, like the glory
Of seven kingdoms, fair.

And the night dimmed over the moonlight,--
And ever the mist was gray,--
With slips of dull stars, bluer
Where the princess met her wooer,
A page like the month o' May.

In her eyes the mist, and the moonlight
In hair of a crumpled gold;
By day they wooed a-hawking,
A-hawking laughed, a-mocking
The good, white king and old.

On the sea the mist, and the moonlight
Poured pale to the lilies' tips;--
At eve, when the hawks were feeding,
In courts to the kennels leading,
He kissed her mouth and lips.

On towers the mist, and the moonlight
On a dead face staring up;--
His kingly couch was ready,
But and her hand was steady
Giving the poisoned cup.

MY ROMANCE.

If it so befalls that the midnight hovers
In mist no moonlight breaks,
The leagues of years my spirit covers,
And myself myself forsakes.

And I live in a land of stars and flowers,
White cliffs by a silver sea;
And the pearly points of her opal towers
From the mountains beckon me.

And I think that I know that I hear her calling
From a casement bathed wit