What shall I tell you, dear, who have told all,

She did not even laugh. Her foolish eyesTwinkled a moment in her cheeks, then setLike fog–bound stars for ever from my sight.And at a signal from the little woman,Who clung to me still, a chorus left and rightOf laughter rose Homeric and inhuman,Drowning all further sense in one wild roar.I heard the spotted girl with…

Of the Soul thou seekest shield,Makest prayer the old mis–chanceOf your birth–bond be repealed,Since, sayest thou, the Soul would wieldSovereign power and looks askanceAt her partner in life’s dance.Tell me, Soul, why claimest thou,Of what right, this sovereignty?Wherefore dost thou cloud thy brow,This thy partner standing nigh?Scorn is written in thine eyeWatching him. Speak plain…

Pure though I was, that love impure had setIts seal on that fair woman in her Spring.Her broken beauty did not mar her graceIn form or spirit. Nay, it rather moved.It seemed a natural thing for that gay faceIt should have known and suffered and been loved.It kindled in me, too, to view it thus,A…

The flowers they set there fall from her fair headWithered, while she, sweet soul, has known no wrong.Forth from her grave miraculously white,And all unstained by the dull earth’s decay,Natalia rises, a last star of night,Just as the dawn is breaking into day.Upon the stones they kneeled them down and prayed,For hearts grow soft with…

For Aphrodité slew him with a kiss.He sighed one sigh, as though he fain would speakThe name he loved, but that his breath grown weakDied on his lips. So died the summer breeze;And all the wood was hushed a minute’s space,Where I stood listening underneath the trees,Until a wood–chat from her secret placeChirped in an…

No vain red roses strew I at thy feet,Emblems of grief and thee, with reverent hands.Mine is no madrigal of passionate joy,Or orison of aught less chaste than tears.Ruth on thy brow sits fairest. Its annoyRends not thy beauty’s raiment, nor the years.In thy shut lips what secrets! Who am IShould seek a sign at…