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The Goblin Laugh

When I behold how men and women grind And grovel for some place of pomp or

power,

To shine and circle through a crumbling

hour,

Forgetting the large mansions of the mind, That are the rest and shelter of mankind; And when I see them come with wearied brains

Pallid and powerless to enjoy their gains, I seem to hear a goblin laugh unwind.

And then a memory sends upon its billow
Thoughts of a singer wise enough to play,
Who took life as a lightsome holiday:
Oft have I seen him make his arm a pillow,
Drink from his hand, and with a pipe of wil-
low

Blow a wild music down a woodland way.

Poetry

She comes like the hush and beauty of the

night,

And sees too deep for laughter;

Her touch is a vibration and a light
From worlds before and after.

A Meeting

Softly she came one twilight from the dead, And in the passionate silence of her look

Was more than man has writ in any book : And now my thoughts are restless, and a dread

Calls them to the Dim Land discomforted;

For down the leafy ways her white feet took,

Lightly the newly broken roses shookWas it the wind disturbed each rosy head?

God! was it joy or sorrow in her face-
That quiet face ? Had it grown old or

young?

Was it sweet memory or sad that stung Her voiceless soul to wander from its place? What do the dead find in the Silence-grace? Or endless grief for which there is no

tongue?

Infinite Depths

The little pool, in street or field apart, Glasses the deep heavens and the rushing

storm;

And into the silent depths of every heart,

The Eternal throws its awful shadow-form.

A Leaf from the Devil's Jest-Book

Beside the sewing-table chained and bent, They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and proud

For her a wedding-gown, for them a shroud;

They stitch and stitch, but never mend the

rent

Torn in life's golden curtains. Glad Youth

went,

And left them alone with Time; and now if bowed

With burdens they should sob and cry aloud,

Wondering, the rich would look from their

content.

And so this glimmering life at last recedes
In unknown, endless depths beyond recall ;

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