Sad is the vague and tender dream
Of dead love's lingering kisses,
To crushed hearts haloed by the
gleam

Of unreturning blisses;

Deep mourns the soul in anguished pride

For the pitiless death that won them,

But the saddest wail is for lips that died

With the virgin dew upon them.

ON THE BLUFF.

O GRANDLY flowing River!
O silver-gliding River!
Thy springing willows shiver
In the sunset as of old;
They shiver in the silence
Of the willow-whitened islands,
While the sun-bars and the sand-bars
Fill air and wave with gold.

O gay, oblivious River!
O sunset-kindled River!
Do you remember ever

The eyes and skies so blue
On a summer day that shone here,
When we were all alone here,
And the blue eyes were too wise
To speak the love they knew?

O stern impassive River!
O still unanswering River!
The shivering willows quiver

As the night-winds moan and rave.
From the past a voice is calling,
From heaven a star is falling,
And dew swells in the bluebells
Above her hillside grave.

A WOMAN'S LOVE.

A SENTINEL angel sitting high in glory

Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory: "Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

Hint more than all the sages say,

Or poets sing, of death or life!

For, truth half drawn from Nature's breast,

Through subtlest types of form and tone,

Outweigh what man at most hath guessed,

While heeding his own heart alone.

And midway betwixt heaven and us Stands Nature, in her fadeless grace, Still pointing to our Father's house, His glory on her mystic face!

WINDLESS RAIN.

THE rain, the desolate rain!

Ceaseless, and solemn, and chill! How it drips on the misty pane,

How it drenches the darkened sill! O scene of sorrow and dearth!

I would that the wind awaking To a fierce and gusty birth

Might vary this dull refrain

Of the rain, the desolate rain: For the heart of heaven seems breaking

In tears o'er the fallen earth,
And again, again, again,
We list to the sombre strain,
The faint, cold, monotone
Whose soul is a mystic moan-
Of the rain, the mournful rain,
The soft, despairing rain!

The rain, the murmurous rain!
Weary, passionless, slow,
'Tis the rhythm of settled sorrow,
'Tis the sobbing of cureless woe!
And all the tragic life,

The pathos of Long-Ago,

Comes back on the sad refrain Of the rain, the dreary rain, Till the graves in my heart unclose And the dead who are buried there From a solemn and weird repose Awake, but with eyeballs drear, And voices that melt in pain On the tide of the plaintive rain, The yearning, hopeless rain, The long, low, whispering rain ?