Collected Works (Vol. III)

5% ROSA MUNDI, AND OTHER LOVE-SONGS ITT. THE KISS I BEHOLD in a mist of hair involving Subtle shadows and shapes of ivory beauty. Gray blue eyes from the sphered opal eyelids Look me through and make me a deep con- tentment Slow dissolving desire. We sit so silent Death might sweep over sleep with flowers of cypress - (Gathered myriad blossoms, Proserpina’s), Stir us not, nor a whisper steal through love- trance. Still we sit; and your head lies calm and splendid Shadowed, curve of an arm about it whisper- ing. Still your bosom respires its sighs of silver; Still one hand o’ me quivers close, caresses, Touches not. O a breath of sudden sad- ness Hides your face as a mist grows up a mountain ! Mist is over my eyes, and darkness gathers Deep on violet inset deep of eyepits. Neither holds in the sight the lovely vision. Slow the mist is dissolved in the wintry sunlight On the fells, and the heather wakes to laughter :— So sight glimmers across the gulf of sorrow. You the lily and I the rose redouble, Bend, soft swayed by a slow spontaneous music, Bend to kiss, are alight, one lamp of moun- rays Caught, held hard in a crystal second. Swiftly Touch, just touch, the appealing floral sisters, Brush no bloom off the blossom, lift no lip- gleam Off the purple and rose, caressing cressets, Flames of flickering love. They draw asunder. Uhus, and motionless thus, forages. Hither! LV. ANNIE. ANEMONES grow in the wood by the stream 3 And the song of the spring in our garden Wakes life to the shape ofan exquisite dream 3 And reason of passion asks pardon. I made up a posy by moonlight, a rose, And a violet white from its cranny, And a bluebell, and stole, on the tips of my toes, At the dark of the night to my Annie. Her window was open ; she slept like a child; So I laid the three flowers on her breast, And stole back alone through the forest deep- aisled, To dream of the lass I loved best. And the next night I lay half awake on my bed, When—a foot-fall as soft as the breeze ! Oh ! never a word nor a whisper she said To disturb the low song of the trees. But she crept to my side. close : Then: ‘‘ Have pardon and pity for me!” She whispered-—‘* your bluebell and violet and rosc--- I can give but one flower for three.” Awhile we lay V. RBRUNNHILDE.! THE sword that was broken is perfect: the hero is here. | Be done with the dwarfs and be done with the spirit of fear ! Hark! the white note of a bird; and the path is declared; | The sword is girt on, and the dragon is summoned and dared. 1 See Wagner, from whose ‘‘ Ring of the Nibelungs’’ the symbolism of this poem is taken.