Darling little woman, just a little line,
  Just a little silver word
For that dear gold of thine,
  Only a whisper you have so often heard: 

Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell
  Holds a little breath of all the mighty sea,
But think what a little of all its depth and swell,
  And think what a little is this little note of me.

’Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for’—­
  There is the whisper stealing from the shell,
But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless,
  And each little wave with its whisper as well.

IN THE NIGHT

  ’Kiss me, dear Love!’—­
But there was none to hear,
  Only the darkness round about my bed
  And hollow silence, for thy face had fled,
Though in my dreaming it had come so near.

I slept again and it came back to me,
  Burning within the hollow arch of night
  Like some fair flame of sacrificial light,
And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee—­
  ’Kiss me, my love! 
Ah, Love, thy face how fair!’
So did I cry, but still thou wert not there.

THE CONSTANT LOVER

I see fair women all the day,
  They pass and pass—­and go;
I almost dream that they are shades
  Within a shadow-show.

Their beauty lays no hand on me,
  They talk—–­ I hear no word;
I ask my eyes if they have seen,
  My ears if they have heard.

For why—­within the north countree
  A little maid, I know,
Is waiting through the days for me,
  Drear days so long and slow.

THE WONDER-CHILD

‘Our little babe,’ each said, ’shall be
Like unto thee’—­’Like unto thee!’
  ‘Her mother’s’—­’Nay, his father’s’—­’eyes,’
  ’Dear curls like thine’—­but each replies,
‘As thine, all thine, and nought of me.’

What sweet solemnity to see
The little life upon thy knee,
  And whisper as so soft it lies,—­
    ‘Our little babe!’

For, whether it be he or she,
A David or a Dorothy,
  ‘As mother fair,’ or ‘father wise,’
  Both when it’s ‘good,’ and when it cries,
One thing is certain,—­it will be
    Our little babe.

MISCELLANEOUS

THE HOUSE OF VENUS

Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame,
Whose love was lust’s insatiable flame—­
Not hers the house I would be singer in
Whose loose-lipped servants seek a weary sin: 
But mine the Venus of that morning flood
With all the dawn’s young passion in her blood,
With great blue eyes and unpressed bosom sweet. 
Her would I sing, and of the shy retreat
Where Love first kissed her wondering maidenhood,
And He and She first stood, with eyes afraid,
In the most golden House that God has made.