X. IN THE WINDOW.

A still gray evening: Autumn in the sky,
And Autumn on the hills and the sad wold;
No congregated towers of pearl and gold

In the vaporous West, no fiend limned duskily,
No angel whose reared trump must soon be loud,
Nor mountains which some pale green lake enfold,

Nor islands in an ocean glacial-cold;

Hardly indeed a noticeable cloud.

Yet here I lingered, all my will asleep,

Gazing an hour with neither joy nor pain,

No noonday trance in midsummer more deep;
And wake with a vague yearning in the dim,
Blind room, my heart scarce able to restrain
The idle tears that tremble to the brim.

L

XI. AN AUTUMN MORNING.

O what a morn is this for us who knew

The large, blue, summer mornings, heaven let down.
Upon the earth for men to drink, the crown
Of perfect human living, when we grew

Great-hearted like the Gods! Come, we will strew
White ashes on our hair, nor strive to drown,
In faint hymn to the year's fulfilled renown

The sterile grief which is the season's due.
Lightly above the vine-rows of rich hills
Where the brown peasant girls move amid grapes
The swallow glances; let him cry for glee!

But yon pale mist diffused 'twixt paler shapes,—
Once sovereign trees, my spirit also fills,

And an east-wind comes moaning from the sea.

SEA VOICES.

Was it a lullaby the Sea went singing

About my feet, some old-world monotone,
Filled full of secret memories, and bringing
Not hope to sting the heart, but peace alone,
Sleep and the certitude of sleep to be
Wiser henceforth than all philosophy?

Truth! did we seek for truth with eye and brain Through days so many and wasted with desire? Listen, the same long gulfing voice again:

Tired limbs lie slack as sands are, eyes that tire Close gently, close forever, twilight grey

Receives you, tenderer than the glaring day.

[He sleeps, and after an interval awakes.]

Ah terror, ah delight! A sudden cry,

Anguish, or hope, or triumph. Awake, arise,

The winds awake! Is ocean's lullaby

This clarion-call? Her kiss, the spray that flies Salt to the lip and cheek? Her motion light

Of nursing breasts, this swift pursuit and flight?

O wild sea-voices! Victory and defeat,

But ever deathless passion and unrest, White wings upon the wind and flying feet,

Disdain and wrath, a reared and hissing crest, The imperious urge, and last, a whole life spent In bliss of one supreme abandonment.

ABOARD THE "SEA-SWALLOW."

The gloom of the sea-fronting cliffs

Lay on the water, violet-dark, The pennon drooped, the sail fell in, And slowly moved our bark.

A golden day; the summer dreamed
In heaven and on the whispering sea,
Within our hearts the summer dreamed;
The hours had ceased to be.

Then rose the girls with bonnets loosed,
And shining tresses lightly blown,

Alice and Adela, and sang

A song of Mendelssohn.

O sweet, and sad, and wildly clear,

Through summer air it sinks and swells,

Wild with a measureless desire,

And sad with all farewells.