A year ago—­how rich we seemed! 
    Like piles of gold our kisses lay,
  Enough to last our lives we dreamed,
    And lives to come, we used to say—­
    Yet are we at the last to-day.

  The last, I say, yet scarce believe
    What all my heart is black with knowing;
  Doomed, I yet watch for some reprieve,
    But know too well that love is going,
    As sure as yonder stream is flowing.

  Look round us how the hot sun burns
    In plots of glory here and there,
  Pouring its gold among the ferns: 
    So burned my lips upon your hair,
    So rained our kisses, love, last year.

  We saw not where a shadow loomed,
    That, from its first auroral hour,
  Our happy paradise fore-doomed;
    A Fate within whose icy power
    Love blooms as helpless as a flower.

  Its shadow by the dial stands,
    The golden moments shudder past,
  Soon shall he smite apart our hands,
    In vain we hold each other fast,
    And the last kiss must come at last.

  The last! then be it charged with fire,
    With sacred passion wild and white,
  With such a glory of desire,
    We two shall vanish in its light,
    And find each other in God’s sight.

  The heart on the sleeve

  I wore my heart upon my sleeve,
    Tis most unwise, they say, to do—­
  But then how could I but believe
    The foolish thing was safe with you? 
  Yet, had I known, ’twas safer far
    With wolves and tigers, the wild sea
  Were kinder to it than you are—­
    Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!

  Yet am I glad I did not know
    That creatures of such tender bloom,
  Beneath their sanctuary snow,
    Were such cold ministers of doom;
  For had I known, as I began
    To love you, ere we flung apart,
  I had not been so glad a man
    As holds his lady to his heart.

  And am I lonely here to-night
    With empty eyes, the cause is this,
  Your face it was that gave me sight,
    My heart ran over with your kiss. 
  Still do I think that what I laid
    Before the altar of your face,
  Flower of words that shall not fade,
    Were worthy of a moment’s grace;

  Some thoughtless, lightly dropped largesse,
    A touch of your immortal hand
  Laid on my brow in tenderness,
    Though you could never understand. 
  And yet with hungered lips to touch
    Your feet of pearl and in your face
  To look a little was over-much—­
    In heaven is no such fair a place
  As, broken-hearted, at your feet
    To lie there and to kiss them, sweet.

  At her feet

  My head is at your feet,
    Two Cytherean doves,
  The same, O cruel sweet,
    As were the Queen of Love’s;
  They brush my dreaming brows
    With silver fluttering beat,
  Here in your golden house,
    Beneath your feet.