Softly his breast-brooch burned and shone;
  Hill and deep were in his eyes;
One of his hands held mine, and one
  The fruit that makes men wise.

Wondrously strange was earth to see,
  Flowers white as milk did gleam;
Spread to Heaven the Assyrian Tree,
  Over my head with Dream.

Dews were still betwixt us twain;
  Stars a trembling beauty shed;
Yet—­not a whisper comes again
  Of the words he said.

BETRAYAL

She will not die, they say,
She will but put her beauty by
        And hie away.

Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely
Then will seem all reverie,
        How black to me!

All things will sad be made
And every hope a memory,
        All gladness dead.

Ghosts of the past will know
My weakest hour, and whisper to me,
        And coldly go.

And hers in deep of sleep,
Clothed in its mortal beauty I shall see,
        And, waking, weep.

Naught will my mind then find
In man’s false Heaven my peace to be: 
        All blind, and blind.

THE CAGE

Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird,
  Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay? 
’Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard,
      Caught only a feint of day.

Still is the night all dark, a homeless dark. 
  Burn yet the unanswering stars.  And silence brings
The same sea’s desolate surge—­sans bound or mark—­
      Of all your wanderings.

Fret now no more; be still.  Those steadfast eyes,
  Those folded hands, they cannot set you free;
Only with beauty wake wild memories—­
  Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be.

THE REVENANT

O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces,
  And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth,
Toward the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces,
  Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth.

God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of;
  Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me;
Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I’m drinking of,
  ’Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be.

Men all all shades, O Woman.—­Winds wist not of the way they blow. 
  Apart from your kindness, life’s at best but a snare. 
Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know
  What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare.

Strange, strange, are ye all—­except in beauty shared with her—­
  Since I seek one I loved, yet was faithless to in death. 
Not life enough I heaped, so thus my heart must fare with her,
  Now wrapt in the gross clay, bereft of life’s breath.

MUSIC