silence, like a prisoner bound,
Rose, by a mighty hand set free,
And dazzlingly, in shafts of sound,
Thundered Beethoven's Mass in C.

She knelt in prayer; large lids serene
Lay heavy on the sombre eyes,
As though to veil some vision seen
Upon the mounts of Paradise.

Her dark face, calm as carven stone.
The face that twilight shows the day,
Brooded, mysteriously alone,
And infinitely far away.

Inexplicable eyes that drew
Mine eyes adoring, why from me
Demand, new Sphinx, the fatal clue
That seals my doom or conquers thee?

PATTIE.

COOL comely country Pattie, grown
A daisy where the daisies grow,
No wind of heaven has ever blown
Across a field-flower's daintier snow.

Gold-white among the meadow-grass
The humble little daisies thrive;
I cannot see them as I pass,
But I am glad to be alive.

And so I turn where Pattie stands,
A flower among the flowers at play;
I'll lay my heart into her hands,
And she will smile the clouds away.

IN AN OMNIBUS.

YOUR smile is like a treachery,
A treachery adorable;
So smiles the siren where the sea
Sings to the unforgetting shell.

Your fleeting Leonardo face,
Parisian Monna Lisa, dreams
Elusively, but not of streams
Born in a shadow-haunted place.

Of Paris, Paris, is your thought,
Of Paris robes, and when to wear
The latest bonnet you have bought
To match the marvel of your hair.

Yet that fine malice of your smile,
That faint and fluctuating glint
Between your eyelids, does it hint
Alone of matters mercantile?

Close lips that keep the secret in,
Half spoken by the stealthy eyes,
Is there indeed no word to win,
No secret, from the vague replies

Of lips and lids that feign to hide
That which they feign to render up?
Is there, in Tantalus' dim cup,
The shadow of water, nought beside?

ON MEETING AFTER.

HER eyes are haunted, eyes that were
Scarce sad when last we met.
What thing is this has come to her
That she may not forget?

They loved, they married: it is well!
But ah, what memories
Are these whereof her eyes half tell,
Her haunted eyes?

IN BOHEMIA.

DRAWN blinds and flaring gas within,
And wine, and women, and cigars;
Without, the city's heedless din;
Above, the white unheeding stars.

And we, alike from each remote,
The world that works, the heave