That know not the divine; I ask not life For a wild round of pleasure or mad deeds; I ask not love, if it be not for me. I ask but work! I would but finish this! If all the thoughts burning within my brain Not foolish thoughts, but thoughts for which men wait Are to die now unuttered, if my strength And then reveal it to blind, waiting men, Asks, but it answers also; what hast thou Answered to those who ask of thine own work, 'What is it for?' Didst thou not say to them, 'It matters not, so it be beautiful '? Thy sphinx, with restless eyes that ask, would fain Question, What is Life for?' but the proud mouth, The patient sweetness of the even brows, Answer, It matters not! it matters not! Not for a living woman, but for her, not ON softest pillows my dim eyes unclose; No pain, delicious weariness instead; Sweet silence broods around the quiet bed, And round me breathes the fragrance of the rose. The moonlight leans against the pane, and shows The little leaves outside in watchful dread Keeping their guard; while with swift, noiseless tread Love in its lovelier service comes and goes. A hand I love brings nectar; near me bends A face I love; ah! it is over! - this How easily one meets Death's gentle kiss, — Alice Williams Brotherton THE BLAZING HEART WHO are ye, spirits, that stand In the outer gloom, Each with a blazing heart in hand, "Oh, we be souls that loved Too well, too well! Happy Francesca ! thine Is the fairer lot. Better with him in hell to pine Than stand in cool shadows by him forgot! MY ENEMY My foe was dark, and stern, and grim, I passed no secret, darkened nook I saw him not, I heard no sound; Was stolen; or, from out the dark, mark. Sweet eyes I loved grew glazed and dim This hath he done, my enemy. II I reached but now this place of gloom And I am free to fare at will- To make us what our kind have been. IN EXPLANATION HER lips were so near That what else could I do? Henry Augustin Beers POSTHUMOUS PUT them in print? Make one more dint In the ages' furrowed rock? No, no! To all the thoughts which flung their spell To some high auditorium. And when we parted homeward, still The heaven had brought new stars to sight, Seemed witnesses and near of kin To the high dreams we held within. Yet what is left Save these remains, Will fret, or swifter fire consume? On his table-cloth; These prints that decked his room; ON A MINIATURE THINE old-world eyes - each one a violet Big as the baby rose that is thy mouthSet me a-dreaming. Have our eyes not met In childhood in a garden of the South? Thy lips are trembling with a song of France, My cousin, and thine eyes are dimly sweet; 'Wildered with reading in an old romance All afternoon upon the garden seat. The summer wind-read with thee, and the bees That on the sunny pages loved to crawl; A skipping reader was the impatient breeze, And turned the leaves, but the slow bees read all, And now thy foot descends the terrace stair; I hear the rustle of thy silk attire; I breathe the musky odors of thy hair, And airs that from thy painted fan respire. Idly thou pausest in the shady walk, Thine ear attentive to the fountain's fall; Thou mark'st the flower-de-luce sway on her stalk, The speckled vergalieus ripening on the wall. Thou hast the feature of my mother's race, The gilded comb she wore, her smile, her eye; The blood that flushes softly in thy face Crawls through my veins beneath this northern sky. As one disherited, though next of kin, Stroll careless through his forfeited estate, Even so I watch thy southern eyes, Lisette, Beauty like thine makes usurpation fair. "If one's allowed to ask it," Quoth I, "Ma belle cousine, What have you in your basket?" (Those baskets white and green The brave Passamaquoddies Weave out of scented grass, And sell to tourist bodies Who through Mt. Desert pass.) You answered, slightly frowning, And come and help me look. There was no fog on Fundy That blue September day; The west wind, for that one day, Had swept it all away. The lighthouse glasses twinkled, The white gulls screamed and flew, The merry sheep-bells tinkled, The merry breezes blew. |