The trees are weeping in their pain,
Dank leaves the ground encumber.
A dismal ghost of silence strays
From shade to dusky daylight;
O’er all a whispered horror weighs,
Like mist athwart the grey light.
A frightened robin in the ferns
Peeks fearfully and lonely,
But back to comfort him returns
The drip of rain-drops only.
The fern-fronds shiver when they feel
Cold foot-prints press like mist, as
Dim forms beneath the creepers steal
And vanish in the vistas.
The wife who had warped his desire and the woman he could not forget.They stood by the bier where between them he slept,And the love he had lost in his wife to her swimming eyes leapt;But the woman his life had belonged to—his paramour—spoke not nor wept.It was only a story of sated desire—Of a…
And autumn seems to stay, love—‘T was autumn when you died.And everything is strange and new,For all my world has died with you—It lacks the light you gave.And sad-eyed dusk awaits alway,And the nights wedge in the narrow dayLike the walls of an open grave!It was so cruel to go, love,To leave me at your…
And she, the fairest flower, between.The bud that with her bosom’s swellIn dear delight once rose and fellNow wafts her all it has to tell,And wonders why she sleeps serene.And yet in life how small a part,With pretty face and petty heart,She played! And in that form so fairThere never dwelt a deep desire,Her bosom…
Hung suspended; and within his whareHipe, last of Ngatiraukawa’s chieftains,Lay a-dying! Ringed about his death-bed,Like a palisade of carven figures,Stood the silent people of the village—Warriors and women of his hapu—Waiting. Then a sudden spilth of sunlightSplashed upon the mountain-peak above them,And it blossomed redly like a rata.With his people and the twilight pausing;Withering to…
Whence I shall see you burning clearA beacon on the mountain-height—Now that our pathways sever here,I have no kiss, I have no tear.Your eyes my lonely world have litWith sunset peace that lingers yet,And on my gladdened heart is writNo shade of blame, and no regret.Your eyes my sombre world have lit,And made a new…
‘Neath a weedy tangleGrew a modest flower;Unpretending, unoffending,Gifted but with fancy,Unassuming in his bloomingGrew that modest pansy.Ah! pansy, pansy,Hope springs anew;But fancy, fancy,Never comes true.Comes a maiden bashful,Wandering here and there,With her silken sash fullOf roses rich and rare;Slow she takes them, dewless shakes themIn her shapely fingers,While to choose some for her bosomLazily she…
