wn
I sing my little songs all wonderingly
That sometime you may hear,--the sweet atone
For all the years and years of search alone--
That sometime you may hear and come to me.

So on I go a-singing down my way
With ne'er a thought of all the journey past,
For this I know--that on one perfect day
When everything is, oh, so glad and gay,
You'll hear and come and claim your own, at last.

Twilight

When twilight falls and all the land is still,
The purple shadows steal across the hill,
And one lone star above a pine-tree's crest
Shines ever brighter, while from out its nest
There breaks the low cry of the whip-poor-will.

And softly grows the ladened hush until
E'en winds list o'er the fields of daffodil
They all day wafted,--'tis so sweet to rest
When twilight falls.

Let not one drop of this rare nectar spill,
But with the beryl wine your goblet fill.
Drink with me, Love, the golden of the west,
For all is made for love and love is best,--
And, oh, the wonder of the moment's thrill
When twilight falls!

The Poet

For one great Queen who sits in majesty,
Untouched, austere, upon a golden throne,
The like whose loveliness was never known
Of ebony and rose and ivory,--
For her you weave a broidered tapestry,
Rife with rich stains of every color-tone
Inwrought; while she immovable as stone
But watches pitiless and silently.

Yet, should this Queen of Beauty lift her arm
And take your broidered web,--ah, then the prize,
The vast reward of all the scars and shame,
For in the moment as a mystic charm
The cloth is changed to porphyry, and lies
Forever on her breast a frozen flame!

The Hunchback

He never knew the golden thrall of youth,
The ringing step, the rumpled wind-tossed hair,
The reckless laugh untouched of pain or ruth,--
Youth without pity and without a care.

Not his the swift lithe strength that ever slays,
And in its joyous slaying doubly sweet,
Like some young god adown immortal ways,
Crushing the blossoms 'neath unheeding feet.

A twisted back, a face year-scarred and grim,
A very mockery to love's caress,
These were the only birthright given him,--
What should he know, except of ugliness?

But in his fettered heart in longing pent
A wealth of tenderness and, stranger too,
Youth full