The year stands still, the tearing winter winds Hold off their claws a moment, that the trees May keep the glory of their blended gold A little minute; there's not so much breeze As summer mornings hold. 

 Golden and still the hours; russet gold The birch-leaves o'er the silver of the bark; Pale gold the poplars, like a lady's hair, And thunderous gold along the hollows dark The sunlit brackens flare. 

 

 

 THE LOVERS 

 There are ghosts we walk with, lady of mine, Arm in arm, and side by side, Pallid ghosts, though the sun may shine, Ghosts that are cold in the warmth of day, And neither of us may fend them away, But step by step they go with us, stride by stride. 

 There are doors in your heart that are shut to me, And behind them dwellers I cannot know; And my soul has windows that open wide On a ghostly, memoried country-side, That—lady of mine—you never will see, Where your voice will never be heard, nor your footsteps go. 

 So we walk together, hand in hand, While dark eyes peer at us, pale forms come, And speak in my ear—or call your name With a voice I hear not, for praise or blame, And you walk alone with that ghostly band, While I go by the side of you, pitying, powerless, dumb. 

 

 

   THE GENTLE HEART 

 What shall harm the gentle heart In its purpose undefiled? Even grief shall lose its smart In some way becoming part Of that nature, soothed and gentled, As a sorrow to a child. 

 Through the blackness and the sin Of the old world's wrongs and woes, And through the greater dark within, The gentle heart shall surely win, As some bright angel, armed with mercy, Swiftly on his errand goes. 

 All the body may have wrought, All the energies of mind That for its own purpose sought, Make at length a little nought Among the stars—the gentle heart Death itself will leave behind. 

 

 

 A BALLAD FOR HERMAN 

 Prev. P 20/29 next