THE BROKEN TRYST

Walking alone where we walked together,
  When June was breezy and blue,
I watch in the gray autumnal weather
  The leaves fall inconstant as you.

If a dead leaf startle behind me,
  I think ’tis your garment’s hem,
And, oh, where no memory could find me,
  Might I whirl away with them!

CASA SIN ALMA

RECUERDO DE MADRID

Silencioso por la puerta
Voy de su casa desierta
Do siempre feliz entre,
Y la encuentro en vano abierta
Cual la boca de una muerta
Despues que el alma se fue.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES

‘What means this glory round our feet,’
  The Magi mused, ‘more bright than morn?’
And voices chanted clear and sweet,
  ‘To-day the Prince of Peace is born!’

‘What means that star,’ the Shepherds said,
  ‘That brightens through the rocky glen?’
And angels, answering overhead,
  Sang, ‘Peace on earth, good-will to men!’

’Tis eighteen hundred years and more
  Since those sweet oracles were dumb;
We wait for Him, like them of yore;
  Alas, He seems so slow to come!

But it was said, in words of gold
  No time or sorrow e’er shall dim,
That little children might be bold
  In perfect trust to come to Him.

All round about our feet shall shine
  A light like that the wise men saw,
If we our loving wills incline
  To that sweet Life which is the Law.

So shall we learn to understand
  The simple faith of shepherds then,
And, clasping kindly hand in hand,
  Sing, ‘Peace on earth, good-will to men!’

And they who do their souls no wrong,
  But keep at eve the faith of morn,
Shall daily hear the angel-song,
  ‘To-day the Prince of Peace is born!’

MY PORTRAIT GALLERY

Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze,
By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy,
From stainless quarries of deep-buried days. 
There, as I muse in soothing melancholy,
Your faces glow in more than mortal youth,
Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly,
The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden,
Now for the first time seen in flawless truth. 
Ah, never master that drew mortal breath
Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death,
Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden! 
Thou paintest that which struggled here below
Half understood, or understood for woe,
And with a sweet forewarning
Mak’st round the sacred front an aureole glow
Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning.

PAOLO TO FRANCESCA