II

From your sweet lips no word hath ever fallen
  To tell my heart its love is not in vain—­
The bee that wooes the flow’r hath honey and pollen
  To cheer him on and bring him back again: 
But what have I, your other friends above,
    To feed my love, to feed my love?

III

Still, still you are my dream and my desire;
  Your love is an allurement and a dare
Set for attainment, like a shining spire,
  Far, far above me in the starry air: 
And gazing upward, ’gainst the hope of hope,
    I breast the slope, I breast the slope.

In May

I

When you and I in the hills went Maying,
  You and I in the sweet May weather,
  The birds, that sang on the boughs together,
There in the green of the woods, kept saying
  All that my heart was saying low,
  Love, as glad as the May’s glad glow,—­
          And did you know? 
When you and I in the hills went Maying.

II

There where the brook on its rocks went winking,
  There by its banks where the May had led us,
  Flowers, that bloomed in the woods and meadows,
Azure and gold at our feet, kept thinking
  All that my soul was thinking there,
  Love, as pure as the May’s pure air,—­
          And did you care? 
There where the brook on its rocks went winking.

III

Whatever befalls through fate’s compelling,
  Should our paths unite or our pathways sever,
  In the Mays to come I shall feel forever
The wildflowers thinking, the wildbirds telling
  The same fond love that my heart then knew,
  Love unspeakable, deep and true,—­
          But what of you? 
Whatever befalls through fate’s compelling.

Will You Forget?

In years to come, will you forget,
Dear girl, how often we have met? 
And I have gazed into your eyes
And there beheld no sad regret
To cloud the gladness of their skies,
While in your heart—­unheard as yet—­
Love slept, oblivious of my sighs?—­
In years to come, will you forget?

Ah, me!  I only pray that when,
In other days, some man of men
Has taught those eyes to laugh and weep
With joy and sorrow, hearts must ken
When love awakens in their deep,—­
I only pray some memory then,
Or sad or sweet, you still will keep
Of me and love that might have been.

Clouds of the Autumn Night

Clouds of the autumn night,
  Under the hunter’s moon,—­
Ghostly and windy white,—­
  Whither, like leaves wild strewn,
Take ye your stormy flight?

Out of the west, where dusk,
  From her rich windowsill,
Leaned with a wand of tusk,
  Witch-like, and wood and hill
Phantomed with mist and musk.