’Nor more it shall, while in your eyes
  My heart its summer heat recovers,
And you, howe’er your mirror lies,
  Find your old beauty in your lover’s.’

THE NEST

MAY

When oaken woods with buds are pink,
  And new-come birds each morning sing,
When fickle May on Summer’s brink
  Pauses, and knows not which to fling,
Whether fresh bud and bloom again,
Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,

Then from the honeysuckle gray
  The oriole with experienced quest
Twitches the fibrous bark away,
  The cordage of his hammock-nest. 
Cheering his labor with a note
Rich as the orange of his throat.

High o’er the loud and dusty road
  The soft gray cup in safety swings,
To brim ere August with its load
  Of downy breasts and throbbing wings,
O’er which the friendly elm-tree heaves
An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.

Below, the noisy World drags by
  In the old way, because it must,
The bride with heartbreak in her eye,
  The mourner following hated dust: 
Thy duty, winged flame of Spring,
Is but to love, and fly, and sing.

Oh, happy life, to soar and sway
  Above the life by mortals led,
Singing the merry months away,
  Master, not slave of daily bread,
And, when the Autumn comes, to flee
Wherever sunshine beckons thee!

PALINODE—­DECEMBER

Like some lorn abbey now, the wood
  Stands roofless in the bitter air;
In ruins on its floor is strewed
  The carven foliage quaint and rare,
And homeless winds complain along
The columned choir once thrilled with song.

And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise
  The thankful oriole used to pour,
Swing’st empty while the north winds chase
  Their snowy swarms from Labrador: 
But, loyal to the happy past,
I love thee still for what thou wast.

Ah, when the Summer graces flee
  From other nests more dear than thou,
And, where June crowded once, I see
  Only bare trunk and disleaved bough;
When springs of life that gleamed and gushed
Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed;

When our own branches, naked long,
  The vacant nests of Spring betray,
Nurseries of passion, love, and song
  That vanished as our year grew gray;
When Life drones o’er a tale twice told
O’er embers pleading with the cold,—­

I’ll trust, that, like the birds of Spring,
  Our good goes not without repair,
But only flies to soar and sing
  Far off in some diviner air,
Where we shall find it in the calms
Of that fair garden ’neath the palms.

A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS

IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER