,
Tenderly dying, touched with pain
A little; standing there I saw again
The sunsets that were dear to us.
I knew not if 'twere bitter or more sweet
To stand and watch the roofs, the sky.
O bitter to be there and you not nigh,
Yet this had been that blessed street.
How the name thrilled me, there upon the wall!
There was the house, the windows there
Against the rosy twilight high and bare,
The pavement-stones: I knew them all!
Days that have been, days that have fallen cold!
I stood and gazed, and thought of you,
Until remembrance sweet and mournful drew
Tears to eyes smiling as of old.
So, sad and glad, your memory visibly
Alive within my eyes, I turned;
And, through a window, met two eyes that burned,
Tenderly questioning, on me.
ON JUDGES' WALK.
THAT night on Judges' Walk the wind
Was as the voice of doom;
The heath, a lake of darkness, lay
As silent as the tomb.
The vast night brooded, white with stars,
Above the world's unrest;
The awfulness of silence ached
Like a strong heart repressed.
That night we walked beneath the trees,
Alone, beneath the trees;
There was some word we could not say
Half uttered in the breeze.
That night on Judges' Walk we said
No word of all we had to say;
But now there shall be no word said
Before the Judge's Day.
IN THE NIGHT.
THE moonlight had tangled the trees
Under our feet as we walked in the night,
And the shadows beneath us were stirred by the breeze
In the magical light;
And the moon was a silver fire,
And the stars were flickers of flame,
Golden and violet and red;
And the night-wind sighed my desire,
And the wind in the tree-tops whispered and said
In her ear her adorable name.
But her heart would not hear what I heard,
The pulse of the night as it beat,
Love, Love, Love, the unspeakable word,
In its murmurous repeat;
She heard not the night-wind's sigh,
Nor her own name breathed in her ear,
Nor the cry of my heart to her heart,
A speechless, a clamorous cry:
"Love! Love! will she hear? will she hear?"
O heart, she will hear, by and by,
When we part, when for ever we part.
FETES GALANTES.
AFTER PAUL VERLAINE.
MANDOLINE,
THE singers of serenades
Whisper their faded vows
Unto fair listening maids
Under the singing boughs.
Tircis, Aminte, are there,
Clitandre is over-long,
And Damis for many a fair
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