Oh, hadst thou thus been man, to-day had we
Walked on together undivided now—­
But now a thousand flaming years must pass,
And all the trial be gone o’er again.

SPIRIT OF SADNESS

She loved the Autumn, I the Spring,
Sad all the songs she loved to sing;
And in her face was strangely set
Some great inherited regret.

Some look in all things made her sigh,
Yea! sad to her the morning sky: 
’So sad! so sad its beauty seems’—­
I hear her say it still in dreams.

But when the day grew grey and old,
And rising stars shone strange and cold,
Then only in her face I saw
A mystic glee, a joyous awe.

Spirit of Sadness, in the spheres
Is there an end of mortal tears? 
Or is there still in those great eyes
That look of lonely hills and skies?

AN INSCRIPTION

Precious the box that Mary brake
Of spikenard for her Master’s sake,
But ah! it held nought half so dear
As the sweet dust that whitens here. 
The greater wonder who shall say: 
To make so white a soul of clay,
From clay to win a face so fair,
Those strange great eyes, that sunlit hair
A-ripple o’er her witty brain,—­
Or turn all back to dust again.

Who knows—­but, in some happy hour,
The God whose strange alchemic power
Wrought her of dust, again may turn
To woman this immortal urn.

SONG

She’s somewhere in the sunlight strong,
  Her tears are in the falling rain,
She calls me in the wind’s soft song,
  And with the flowers she comes again.

Yon bird is but her messenger,
  The moon is but her silver car;
Yea! sun and moon are sent by her,
  And every wistful waiting star.