longing heart reposes,
Waking old love-dreams that overflow
In a rapturous joy and wistful pain.

Ah, that song 'tis sweet as the pipes of Pan,
Or faint lutes sounding in Arcady
Through the purple dawn,--yea, far sweeter than
The music that wafts from a Southern sea!
Beneath its spell the wastes bloom in flowers,
And back again come the vanished hours,
For she who sings to the soul of man
Is the Autumn spirit of memory.

On The Long Road

Ah, many were they then of yesterday,
Who bore me gifts of attar and of myrrh,
And leaves of roses delicate that were
Sprung from a garden-close in far Cathay;
While I, unheeding, let them pass their way
Nor cared for all the gifts they might confer,
Watching in vain for one dear loiterer,
Who never dreamed adown my path to stray.

And now out in the lonely road I stand,
Where echoes drearily the ceaseless tread
Of stranger footsteps, slow and burdensome--
I am forgot and empty is each hand,
Save for the dust of roses withered,
Yet still I wait for you who never come.

A Postlude

If only in your life to live, might I
Perchance those broken chords with my own meet,
Though quite imperfect, yet but thus to try
Were oh, so wondrous sweet.

Not the broad high-roads which you would have trod,
A lonely wanderer these may not essay,
Still, spirit mine, the by-paths that I plod
Do lead the selfsame way.

And if a little part I should fulfil
Of those fair deeds which you hoped to pursue--
Oh, how content to walk the miles until
I reach my home and you.

An Old Song

Low blowing winds from out a midnight sky,
The falling embers and a kettle's croon--
These three, but oh what sweeter lullaby
Ever awoke beneath the winter's moon.

We know of none the sweeter, you and I,
And oft we've heard together that old tune--
Low blowing winds from out a midnight sky,
The falling embers and a kettle's croon.

Old Roses

Spirit of old-time roses, when the glow
Of eventide steals softly through the trees
Like rosy petals falling, and the breeze
Grows hushed until it sings a love-song, low
And sweet and tender, then I seem to know
You too are somewhere near and watching these
Last wondrous sights of day--God's mysteries
We used to watch together