d
Your golden footprints, Love the boy,
Dreams you are near . . . but Love is blind!
Yet, surely Sorrow's arms unwind
From this tired heart, and dark distress
Fades softly . . . softly from the world:
And in Hope's silver sky unfurled,
I see the banners of delight!
And the grey heaven of life grows bright
With the red dawn of happiness . . .
As with a laughing look Love flings
His heavy crown of thorns away . . .
Fair fortune, you are wild and coy,
And ah! I fear you will not stay.
But Love has caught you by the wings
And radiant as Eurydice
By her brave poet's song set free,
I rush into the arms of joy!

Shadow-Nets

When I was wandering on the Downs to-day
I saw the pine-woods sleeping in the sun . . .
For they were tired of weaving shadow-nets--
Weaving all day in vain . . . in vain . . . in vain . . .
Pale phantom nets to snare the golden sun!
And then I thought of how the poets weave
With shadowy words their cunning nets of song,
Hoping to catch, at last, a shining dream!

Peacocks. A Mood

In Gorgeous plumage, azure, gold and green,
They trample the pale flowers, and their shrill cry
Troubles the garden's bright tranquillity!
Proud birds of Beauty, splendid and serene,
Spreading their brilliant fans, screen after screen
Of burnished sapphire, gemmed with mimic suns--
Strange magic eyes, that, so the legend runs,
Will bring misfortune to this fair demesne . . .

And my gay youth, that, vain and debonair,
Sits in the sunshine--tired at last of play
(A child, that finds the morning all too long),
Tempts with its beauty that disastrous day
When in the gathering darkness of despair
Death shall strike dumb the laughing mouth of song.

Hyacinthus

Fair boy, how gay the morning must have seemed
Before the fatal game that murdered thee!
Of such a dawn my wistful heart has dreamed:
Surely I too have lived in Arcady
When Spring, lap-full of roses, ran to meet
White Aphrodite risen from the sea . . .

Perchance I saw thee then, so glad and fleet;
Hasten to greet Apollo, stoop to bind
The gold and jewelled sandals on his feet,
While he so radiant, so divinely kind,
Lured thee with honeyed words to be his friend,
All heedless of thy fate, for Love is blind.

For Love is blind and cruel, and the end
Of every joy is sorrow and distress.
And when immortal creatures lightly bend
To kiss the lips of simple loveliness,
Swords are unsheathed in silence, and clouds rise,
Some God