The wild sea moaned, the black clouds spread
  Moving shadows on its bed,
  But one of us lay midship dead.

  I saw his coffin sliding down
  The yellow sand in yonder town,
  Where I put on my sorrow’s crown.

  And we returned; in this drear place
  Never to see him face to face,
  I thrust aside the living race.

  Mothers, who mourn with me to-day,
  Oh, understand me, when I say,
  I cannot weep, I cannot pray;

  I gaze upon a hidden store,
  His books, his toys, the clothes he wore,
  And cry, “Once more, to me, once more!”

  Then take, from me, this simple verse,
  That you may know what I rehearse—­
  A grief—­your and my Universe!

BEFORE THE MIRROR.

  Now like the Lady of Shalott,
    I dwell within an empty room,
  And through the day and through the night
    I sit before an ancient loom.

  And like the Lady of Shalott
    I look into a mirror wide,
  Where shadows come, and shadows go,
    And ply my shuttle as they glide.

  Not as she wove the yellow wool,
    Ulysses’ wife, Penelope;
  By day a queen among her maids,
    But in the night a woman, she,

  Who, creeping from her lonely couch,
    Unraveled all the slender wool;
  Or, with a torch, she climbed the towers,
    To fire the fagots on the roof!

  But weaving with a steady hand
    The shadows, whether false or true,
  I put aside a doubt which asks
    “Among these phantoms what are you?”

  For not with altar, tomb, or urn,
    Or long-haired Greek with hollow shield,
  Or dark-prowed ship with banks of oars,
    Or banquet in the tented field;

  Or Norman knight in armor clad,
    Waiting a foe where four roads meet;
  Or hawk and hound in bosky dell,
    Where dame and page in secret greet;

  Or rose and lily, bud and flower,
    My web is broidered.  Nothing bright
  Is woven here:  the shadows grow
    Still darker in the mirror’s light!

  And as my web grows darker too,
    Accursed seems this empty room;
  For still I must forever weave
    These phantoms by this ancient loom.

“THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER REACH.”

  The shadows on the water reach
    My shadow on the beach;
  I see the dark trees on the shore,
    The fisher’s oar.

  I met her by the sea last night,
    A little maid in white;
  I shall never meet her more
    On the shore.

  Ho! fisher, hoist your idle sail,
    And whistle for a gale;
  My ship is waiting in the bay,
    Row away!

A SUMMER NIGHT.

  I feel the breath of the summer night,
      Aromatic fire: 
  The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
      With tender desire.