O, with such second flood your love
Painted my earth and heaven above,
With such wild magnificence
As bruised my heart in every sense,
In every nerve.  Was ever man
Fit this renewed love to sustain?

Now in these days when Autumn’s leaf
Is red and gold, and for a brief
Day the earth flowers ere it dies,
What if Spring came with new surprise,
Came ere the aspen shivered bare
Or the beech coins glittered in cold air,
Before the rough wind the maple stripped
And this bare moon on bare boughs stepped! 
Vain thought—­O, yet not wholly vain: 
Even to me Love has come again,
Moving from your quick breast where he
Fluttered in his wondering infancy.

THE GLASS

Your face has lost
The clearness it once wore,
And your brow smooth and white
Its look of light;
Your eyes that were
So careless, are how deep with care!

O, what has done
This cruelty to you? 
Is it only Time makes strange
Your look with change,
Or something more
Than the worst pang Time ever bore?—­

Regret, regret! 
So bitter that it changes
Bright youth to madness,
Poisoning mere sadness ... 
O, vain glass that shows
Less than the bitterness the heart knows.

BUT MOST THY LIGHT

I know how fire burns,
How from the wrangling fumes
Rose and amber blooms,
    And slowly dies.

Nothing’s so swift as fire,
There’s nothing alive so fierce. 
The lifted lances pierce,
    Sink, and upspring.

Like an Indian sword it leaps
Out of the smoking sheath. 
Even the winged feet of death
    Learn speed from fire;

And pain its cunning learns;
Languor its sweet
From the decaying heat
    That never dies.

I know how fire burns
Unguessed, save for tears,
When the thousand-fanged flame spears
    The body’s guard;

Or when the mind, the mind
Is ever-glowing wood,
And fire runs in the blood
    Lunatic, blind;

When remorse burns and burns
And burns always, always—­
The fire that surest slays
    Or surest numbs.

I know how fire burns
But how I cannot tell. 
And Heaven burns like Hell
    Yet the Heart endures.

’Tis the immortal Flame
In mortal life that’s bitter,
Or than all sweet sweeter
    Though life burns down.

Teach me, fire, but this,
Nor alone destroying burn:—­
Of thy warmth let me learn,
    But most thy light.

IN THAT DARK SILENT HOUR

In that dark silent hour
When the wind wants power,
And in the black height
The sky wants light,
Stirless and black
In utter lack,
And not a sound
Escapes from that untroubled round:—­