stung.

The orchard path, which led around
The garden,--with its heat one twinge
Of dinning locusts,--picket-bound,
And ragged, brought me where one hinge
Held up the gate that scraped the ground.

All seemed the same: the martin-box--
Sun-warped with pigmy balconies--
Still stood with all its twittering flocks,
Perched on its pole above the peas
And silvery-seeded onion-stocks.

The clove-pink and the rose; the clump
Of coppery sunflowers, with the heat
Sick to the heart: the garden stump,
Red with geranium-pots and sweet
With moss and ferns, this side the pump.

I rested, with one hesitant hand
Upon the gate. The lonesome day,
Droning with insects, made the land
One dry stagnation; soaked with hay
And scents of weeds, the hot wind fanned.

I breathed the sultry scents, my eyes
Parched as my lips. And yet I felt
My limbs were ice. As one who flies
To some strange woe. How sleepy smelt
The hay-sweet heat that soaked the skies!

Noon nodded; dreamier, lonesomer,
For one long, plaintive, forestside
Bird-quaver.--And I knew me near
Some heartbreak anguish ... She had died.
I felt it, and no need to hear!

I passed the quince and peartree; where
All up the porch a grape-vine trails--
How strange that fruit, whatever air
Or earth it grows in, never fails
To find its native flavor there!

And she was as a flower, too,
That grows its proper bloom and scent
No matter what the soil: she, who,
Born better than her place, still lent
Grace to the lowliness she knew....

They met me at the porch, and were
Sad-eyed with weeping. Then the room
Shut out the country's heat and purr,
And left light stricken into gloom--
So love and I might look on her.

THE WHITE VIGIL.

Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead,
And by your sheeted form stood all alone:
Frail as a flow'r you lay upon your bed,
And on your still face, through the casement, shone
The moon, as lingering to kiss you there
Fall'n asleep, white violets in your hair.

Oh, sick to weeping was my soul, and sad
To breaking was my heart that would not break;
And for my soul's great grief no tear I had,
No lamentation for my heart's deep ache;
Yet all I bore seemed more than I could bear
Beside you dead, white violets in your hair.

A white rose, blooming at your window-bar,
And glimmering in it, like a fire-fly caught