Songs from Vagabondia
come hither now! All the summer joy is dead. There's a sense of something gone In the grass I linger on. There's an under-voice that grieves In the rustling of the leaves. Pine-clad peaks! Rushing waters! Glens where we were once so glad! There's a light passed from you, There's a joy outcast from you,— You have lost your Oread. 

AT SEA.

 As a brave man faces the foe, Alone against hundreds, and sees Death grin in his teeth, But, shutting his lips, fights on to the end Without speech, without hope, without flinching,— So, silently, grimly, the steamer Lurches ahead through the night. A beacon-light far off, Twinkling across the waves like a star! But no star in the dark overhead! The splash of waters at the prow, and the evil light Of the death-fires flitting like will-o'-the-wisps beneath! And beyond Silence and night! I sit by the taffrail, Alone in the dark and the blown cold mist and the spray, Feeling myself swept on irresistibly, Sunk in the night and the sea, and made one with their footfall-less onrush, Letting myself be borne like a spar adrift Helplessly into the night. Without fear, without wish, Insensate save of a dull, crushed ache in my heart, Careless whither the steamer is going, Conscious only as in a dream of the wet and the dark And of a form that looms and fades indistinctly Everywhere out of the night. O love, how came I here? Shall I wake at thy side and smile at my dream? The dream that grips me so hard that I cannot wake nor stir! O love! O my own love, found but to be lost! My soul sends over the waters a wild inarticulate cry, Like a gull's scream heard in the night. The mist creeps closer. The beacon Vanishes astern. The sea's monotonous noises Lapse through the drizzle with a listless, subsiding cadence. And thou, O love, and the sea throb on in my brain together, While the steamer plunges along, Butting its way through the night. 

ISABEL.

 In her body's perfect sweet Suppleness and languor meet,— Arms that move like lapsing billows, Breasts that Love would make his pillows, Eyes where vision melts in bliss, Lips that ripen to a kiss. 

CONTEMPORARIES.

 "A barbered woman's man,"—yes, so He seemed to me a twelvemonth since; And so he may be—let it go— Admit his flaws—we need not wince To find our noblest not all great. What of it? He is still the prince, And we the pages of his state. The world applauds his words; his fame Is noised wherever knowledge be; Even the trader hears his name, As one far inland hears the sea; The lady 
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