ill my soul
That aches with hopes and fears
As thy chariot wheels' roll
Sets fire with torches of gold
To my words, my silences, my singing,
And to this black pyre of my life
To take my being on the wings of thy embracing
To sail away, far away from man's hate and strife
Where only love reigns on its throne of unending light.

37

REMORSE

Gently descending dark--
Curtain of silence
From heaven to earth;

The drama of day over,
Empty the seats of life,
Dead the twilight fire.

Curtains of black
Woven from threads of purple
By the hands of a star,

That lone soul weeping
Over the dead hours
Laid by mute time in the eternal's grave.

In the night of my soul
Not even a ray,
Nor a mourner present;

But a deep dark hollow
Where no fate weeps
Even fear is afraid to tread:

Fear-forsaken, hollow within hollow,
Even silence flees from me--
O, the pity of it!

38

POET

To distil a few golden drops of song
Through the gloom of this hour;
To filter true emotions
Through passion's burning fire
When the sun bubble-like fades in the west;
As our being craves for night's rest
That pool of silver in life's forest of distress.

To light some pale candles
In the cavern of a lonely isle
And draw the wine of day
From the must of midnight,
Or plant a star-seed in the gray-ploughed eve--
So out of the abyss of the blackness of night
Dawn's million-colored fountain might spring.

39

WANDERER

The silvery beach, a riband around the flowing hair of the sea,
Where gleam the foam-flowers garlanded in multitudinous nebulous rings:
Here, on the frontier of many worlds and the billow-rocked cradle of
eternal sleep,
No sound, no music, no silence that a wounded soul can heal.

A longing more tempestuous than the craven breeze-possessed deep,
And tears that outweigh the salt of the woeful brine,
Yet no sleep dream-robbed, or dream-laden, nor even death's pallid
peace;
But a ceaseless crying over my heart's forsaken valleys
Where love like a wraith haunts the empty tombs of memory.

40

AT DAWN

With the breath of dawn
Cooling thy feverish brow,
And the fading of the last footfall of the stars
No kiss can I bring to thy bedside,
Nor c