Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee
Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee,
Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee.

Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander
Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder
The misty mountains of the morning yonder.

Listen:- the mountain winds with rain were fretting,
And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting. 
I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting.

What part of this wild heart of mine I know not
Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not,
And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not.

Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it
Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it,
And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it.

Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide thee. 
Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence hide thee,
This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee,—­

Telling thee:  all thy memories moved the maiden,
With thy regrets was morning over-shaden,
With sorrow thou hast left, her life was laden.

But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue thee
Life changes, and the years and days renew thee. 
Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee.

Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses
Upon the evening as the morning tresses,
Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses.

And we, so altered in our shifting phases,
Track one another ’mid the many mazes
By the eternal child-breath of the daisies.

I have not writ this letter of divining
To make a glory of thy silent pining,
A triumph of thy mute and strange declining.

Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded. 
Only one morning, and the day was clouded. 
And one old age with all regrets is crowded.

Oh, hush; oh, hush!  Thy tears my words are steeping. 
Oh, hush, hush, hush!  So full, the fount of weeping? 
Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping?

Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her. 
Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter
That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her.

The one who now thy faded features guesses,
With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses,
With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses.

SONG

As the inhastening tide doth roll,
Dear and desired, along the whole
   Wide shining strand, and floods the caves,
   Your love comes filling with happy waves
The open sea-shore of my soul.

But inland from the seaward spaces,
None knows, not even you, the places
   Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight,
   —­The little solitudes of delight
This tide constrains in dim embraces.

You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,
But know not of the quiet dimmed
   Rivers your coming floods and fills,
   The little pools ’mid happier hills,
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.