AT HOME

When I was dead, my spirit turned
  To seek the much-frequented house: 
I passed the door, and saw my friends
  Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
  They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
  For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat: 
  Said one:  ’To-morrow we shall be 10
Plod plod along the featureless sands,
  And coasting miles and miles of sea.’ 
Said one:  ’Before the turn of tide
  We will achieve the eyrie-seat.’ 
Said one:  ’To-morrow shall be like
  To-day, but much more sweet.’

‘To-morrow,’ said they, strong with hope,
  And dwelt upon the pleasant way: 
‘To-morrow,’ cried they, one and all,
  While no one spoke of yesterday. 20
Their life stood full at blessed noon;
  I, only I, had passed away: 
‘To-morrow and to-day,’ they cried;
  I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast
  No chill across the tablecloth;
I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad
  To stay, and yet to part how loth: 
I passed from the familiar room,
  I who from love had passed away, 30
Like the remembrance of a guest
  That tarrieth but a day.

A TRIAD

Sonnet

Three sang of love together:  one with lips
  Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
  And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
  Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
  Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of. 
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
  Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love.  Thus two of three
  Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee: 
  All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

LOVE FROM THE NORTH

I had a love in soft south land,
  Beloved through April far in May;
He waited on my lightest breath,
  And never dared to say me nay.

He saddened if my cheer was sad,
  But gay he grew if I was gay;
We never differed on a hair,
  My yes his yes, my nay his nay.

The wedding hour was come, the aisles
  Were flushed with sun and flowers that day; 10
I pacing balanced in my thoughts: 
  ’It’s quite too late to think of nay.’—­

My bridegroom answered in his turn,
  Myself had almost answered ‘yea:’ 
When through the flashing nave I heard
  A struggle and resounding ‘nay.’