As in a Rose-Jar

As in a rose-jar filled with petals sweet
Blown long ago in some old garden place,
Mayhap, where you and I, a little space,
Drank deep of love and knew that love was fleet--
Or leaves once gathered from a lost retreat
By one who never will again retrace
Her silent footsteps--one, whose gentle face
Was fairer than the roses at her feet;

So, deep within the vase of memory,
I keep my dust of roses fresh and dear
As in the days before I knew the smart
Of time and death. Nor aught can take from me
The haunting fragrance that still lingers here--
As in a rose-jar, so within my heart!

The Island

There is an island in the silent sea,
Whose marge the wistful waves lap listlessly--
An isle of rest for those who used to be.

For ne'er an echo wakes that towering wall,
Whose blackened crags answer none other call
Save the lone ocean's rhythmic rise and fall.

Only the song the sea sings as she laves
That sleep-bound shore with sad caressing waves,
The while the dead sleep sweeter in their graves.

'Tis oh! so still they sleep within each tomb,
Cool in long shadows of the cypress gloom,
Breathing in death the moon-flower's rank perfume.

They know not when slow barges on the mere
Enter the portals of that place austere--
Enter and so forever disappear!

And in this island of a silent sea,
Whose marge e'er wistful waves lap listlessly,
Is rest,--is peace for all eternity.

You and I

Over the hills where the pine-trees grow,
With a laugh to answer the wind at play.
Why do I laugh? I do not know,
But you and I once passed this way.

Down in the hollow now white with snow
My heart is singing a song today.
Why do I sing? I do not know,
But you and I were here in May.

A Ballade of Old Romance

When April spreads her mantle green
Across the pasture-lands of snow,
And Spring's first scarlet breasts are seen
Where treetops rustle to and fro;
Then come fair fragrant dreams as though
Our lightest fancy to entrance
And paint us what we fain would know
Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

Anon, we see the golden sheen
Of burnished mail the sunbeams throw,
Flashing the poplars tall between,
As knights ride by to meet the foe;
Or, mayhap, shepherd lads who blow
On slender pipes, a pastoral dance--
Ah, strong were