* * * * *

And thus you ever flee,
Elude and baffle me,
My lady you will not always so lightly glide away;
Though on the swiftest breeze,
You sail o'er farthest seas,
Remember, side by side we two will stand one day.

Though my dust feed the wind,
Yours be with prayer consigned
To the keeping of churchyard seraphs and marble saints;
Lemoine, we two shall meet,
And not then at my feet
Will you fetter a late repentance with wiles and tearful plaints.

Repentance and strong,
That would have found a tongue,
And shrieked the truth to heaven with madd'ning din;
The truth of that dread hour,
That black accursed hour,
When to free you from hated fetters, I plunged my soul in sin.

Whatever wise man thinks,
Sin forges strongest links,
You can break them never, although for a time you may hide
Buried in flowers and wine;
This chain of thine and mine,
At the last dread day of doom will draw us side by side.

If one, then both are cursed,
And come the best, the worst,
Forever and ever your fate and mine are entwined;
And though it be mad--mad,
Heaven knows the thought is glad,
I do not breed my thoughts, how can I help my mind.

* * * * *

So silent doth she come,
Standing here pale and dumb,
With her finger laid on her lips in a warning way;
Her dark eyes looking back,
As if upon her track
And mine, some phantom shape of impending evil lay.

But when I strive to see,
Of what she's warning me,
Cruelly calm, no sign will she deign to love or fears;
Unheeding vow or prayer,
As noiseless as the air,
She glideth into the pallid moonlight and disappears.

SLEEP.

Come to me soft-eyed sleep,
With your ermine sandalled feet;
Press the pain from my troubled brow
With your kisses cool and sweet;
Lull me with slumbrous song,
Song of your clime, the blest,
While on my heavy eyelids
Your dewy fingers rest.

Come with your native flowers,
Heartsease and lotus bloom,
Enwrap my weary senses
With the cloud of their perfume;
For the whispers of thought tire me,
Their constant, dull repeat,
Like low waves throbbing, sobbing,
With endless, endless beat.

THE LADY MAUD.

I sit in the cloud and the darkness
Where I lost you, peerless one;
Your bright face shines upon fairer lands,
Like the dawning of the sun,
And what to you is the rustic youth,
You sometimes smiled upon.

You have roa