If one, then both are cursed,
And come the best, the worst,
  Forever and ever your fate and mine are entwined;
And though it be mad—­mad,
Heaven knows the thought is glad,
  I do not breed my thoughts, how can I help my mind.

* * * * *

So silent doth she come,
Standing here pale and dumb,
  With her finger laid on her lips in a warning way;
Her dark eyes looking back,
As if upon her track
  And mine, some phantom shape of impending evil lay.

But when I strive to see,
Of what she’s warning me,
  Cruelly calm, no sign will she deign to love or fears;
Unheeding vow or prayer,
As noiseless as the air,
  She glideth into the pallid moonlight and disappears.

SLEEP.

Come to me soft-eyed sleep,
  With your ermine sandalled feet;
Press the pain from my troubled brow
  With your kisses cool and sweet;
Lull me with slumbrous song,
  Song of your clime, the blest,
While on my heavy eyelids
  Your dewy fingers rest.

Come with your native flowers,
  Heartsease and lotus bloom,
Enwrap my weary senses
  With the cloud of their perfume;
For the whispers of thought tire me,
  Their constant, dull repeat,
Like low waves throbbing, sobbing,
  With endless, endless beat.

THE LADY MAUD.

I sit in the cloud and the darkness
  Where I lost you, peerless one;
Your bright face shines upon fairer lands,
  Like the dawning of the sun,
And what to you is the rustic youth,
  You sometimes smiled upon.

You have roamed through mighty cities,
  By the Orient’s gleaming sea,
Down the glittering streets of Venice,
  And soft-skied Araby: 
Life to you has been an anthem,
  But a solemn dirge to me.

For everywhere, by Rome’s bright hills,
  Or by the silvery Rhine,
You win all hearts to you, where’er
  Your glancing tresses shine;
But, darling, the love of the many,
  Is not a love like mine.

Last night I heard your voice in my dreams,
  I woke with a joyous thrill
To hear but the half-awakened birds,
  For the dark dawn lingered still,
And the lonesome sound of the waters,
  At the foot of Carey’s hill.

Oh the pines are dark on Carey’s hill,
  And the waters are black below,
But they shone like waves of jasper
  Upon one day I know,
The day I bore you out of the stream,
  With your face as white as snow.

You lay like a little lamb in my arms,
  So frail a thing, so weak,
And my coward lips said burning words
  They never had dared to speak
If they had not felt the chill of your brow,
  And the marble of your cheek.

Life had been but a bitter gift,
  That I fain would have thrown away,
But I could have thanked my God on my knees,
  For giving me life that day,
As I took you, lying so helpless,
  From the gates of death away.