It is your witchery, not my will, Your beauty, not my choice: My shadows knew me faithful, till They heard your living voice.

 

TO A GREAT ACTRESS.

SHE has taken my heart, though she knows not, would care not. It thrills at her voice like a reed in the wind; I would taste all her agonies, have her to spare not, Sin deep as she sinned,

To be tossed by the storm of her love, as the ocean Rocks vessels to wreck; to be hers, though the cost Were the loss of all else: for that moment’s emotion Content to be lost!

To be, for a moment, the man of all men to her, All the world, for one measureless moment complete; To possess, be possessed! To be mockery then to her, Then to die at her feet!

 

LOVE IN DREAMS.

I LIE on my pallet bed, And I hear the drip of the rain; The rain on my garret roof is falling, And I am cold and in pain.

I lie on my pallet bed, And my heart is wild with delight; I hear her voice through the midnight calling, As I lie awake in the night.

I lie on my pallet bed, And I see her bright eyes gleam; She smiles, she speaks, and the world is ended, And made again in a dream.

 

MUSIC AND MEMORY.

To K.W.

ACROSS the tides of music, in the night, Her magical face, A light upon it as the happy light Of dreams in some delicious place Under the moonlight in the night.

Music, soft throbbing music in the night, Her memory swims Into the brain, a carol of delight; The cup of music overbrims With wine of memory, in the night.

Her face across the music, in the night, Her face a refrain, A light that sings along the waves of light, A memory that returns again, Music in music, in the night.

 

SPRING TWILIGHT.

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