And gently balanced on the wing Of the wild whirlwind we will, ride, Rejoicing with the joyous thing. My sister, floating side by side, Fly we unceasing whither gleams The distant heaven of my dreams. THE DEATH OF LOVERS There shall be couches whence faint odours rise, Divans like sepulchres, deep and profound; Strange flowers that bloomed beneath diviner skies The death-bed of our love shall breathe around. And guarding their last embers till the end, Our hearts shall be the torches of the shrine, And their two leaping flames shall fade and blend In the twin mirrors of your soul and mine. And through the eve of rose and mystic blue A beam of love shall pass from me to you, Like a long sigh charged with a last farewell; And later still an angel, flinging wide The gates, shall bring to life with joyful spell The tarnished mirrors and the flames that died. THE DEATH OF THE POOR Death is consoler and Death brings to life; The end of all, the solitary hope; We, drunk with Death's elixir, face the strife, Take heart, and mount till eve the weary slope. Across the storm, the hoar-frost, and the snow, Death on our dark horizon pulses clear; Death is the famous hostel we all know, Where we may rest and sleep and have good cheer. Death is an angel whose magnetic palms Bring dreams of ecstasy and slumberous calms To smooth the beds of naked men and poor. Death is the mystic granary of God; The poor man's purse; his fatherland of yore; The Gate that opens into heavens untrod! GYPSIES TRAVELLING The tribe prophetic with the eyes of fire Went forth last night; their little ones at rest Each on his mother's back, with his desire Set on the ready treasure of her breast. Laden with shining arms the men-folk tread By the long wagons where their goods lie hidden; They watch the heaven with eyes grown weariëd Of hopeless dreams that come to them unbidden. The grasshopper, from out his sandy screen, Watching them pass redoubles his shrill song; Dian, who loves them, makes the grass more green, And makes the rock run water for this throng Of ever-wandering ones Whose calm eyes see Familiar realms of darkness yet to be. FRANCISCÆ MEÆ LAUDES Novis te cantabo chordis, O novelletum quod ludis In solitudine cordis. Esto sertis implicata, O fœmina delicata Per quam solvuntur peccata Sicut beneficum Lethe, Hauriam oscula de te, Quæ imbuta es magnete. Quum vitiorum tempestas Turbabat omnes semitas, Apparuisti, Deitas, Velut stella salutaris In naufragiis amaris.... Suspendam cor tuis aris! Piscina plena virtutis, Fons æternæ juventutis, Labris vocem redde mutis!