No reply.  The fountain’s warble
In the courtyard sounds alone. 
As the water to the marble
So my heart falls with a moan
From love-sighing
To this dying. 
Death forerunneth Love to win
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

Will you come?  When I’m departed
Where all sweetnesses are hid,
Where thy voice, my tender-hearted,
Will not lift up either lid,
Cry, O lover,
Love is over! 
Cry, beneath the cypress green,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

When the Angelus is ringing,
Near the convent will you walk,
And recall the choral singing
Which brought angels down our talk? 
Spirit-shriven
I viewed heaven,
Till you smiled—­“Is earth unclean,
Sweetest eyes were ever seen?”

When beneath the palace-lattice
You ride slow as you have done,
And you see a face there that is
Not the old familiar one,
Will you oftly
Murmur softly,
“Here ye watched me morn and e’en,
Sweetest eyes were ever seen”?

When the palace-ladies, sitting
Round your gittern, shall have said,
“Poets, sing those verses written
For the lady who is dead,”
Will you tremble,
Yet dissemble,
Or sing hoarse, with tears between,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen”?

“Sweetest eyes!” How sweet in flowings
The repeated cadence is! 
Though you sang a hundred poems,
Still the best one would be this. 
I can hear it
’Twixt my spirit
And the earth-noise intervene,—­
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

But—­but now—­yet unremoved
Up to heaven they glisten fast;
You may cast away, beloved,
In your future all my past: 
Such old phrases
May be praises
For some fairer bosom-queen—­
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

Eyes of mine, what are ye doing? 
Faithless, faithless, praised amiss
If a tear be, on your showing,
Dropped for any hope of HIS! 
Death has boldness
Besides coldness,
If unworthy tears demean
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

I will look out to his future;
I will bless it till it shine. 
Should he ever be a suitor
Unto sweeter eyes than mine,
Sunshine gild them,
Angels shield them,
Whatsoever eyes terrene
Be the sweetest HIS have seen.

THE SLEEP

“He giveth his beloved sleep.”—­Ps. cxxvii. 2

OF ALL the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward into souls afar
Along the Psalmist’s music deep,
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace, surpassing this—­
“He giveth his beloved sleep.”

     What would we give to our beloved? 
     The hero’s heart to be unmoved. 
       The poet’s star-tuned harp to sweep,
     The patriot’s voice to teach and rouse,
     The monarch’s crown to light the brows?—­
       He giveth his beloved sleep.