Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes, Those folded hands, they cannot set you free; Only with beauty wake wild memories-- Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be. THE REVENANT O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces, And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth, Toward the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces, Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth. God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of; Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me; Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I'm drinking of, 'Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be. Men all all shades, O Woman.--Winds wist not of the way they blow. Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare. Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare. Strange, strange, are ye all--except in beauty shared with her-- Since I seek one I loved, yet was faithless to in death. Not life enough I heaped, so thus my heart must fare with her, Now wrapt in the gross clay, bereft of life's breath. MUSIC When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees, Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face, With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place. When music sounds, all that I was I am Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; While from Time's woods break into distant song The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along. THE REMONSTRANCE I was at peace until you came And set a careless mind aflame. I lived in quiet; cold, content; All longing in safe banishment, Until your ghostly lips and eyes Made wisdom unwise. Naught was in me to tempt your feet To seek a lodging. Quite forgot Lay the sweet solitude we two In childhood used to wander through; Time's cold had closed my heart about; And shut you out. Well, and what then?... O vision grave, Take all the little all I have! Strip me of what in voiceless thought Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought!-- Reverie and dream that memory must Hide deep in dust! This only I say:--Though cold and bare The haunted house you have chosen to share, Still 'neath its walls the moonbeam goes And trembles on the untended rose; Still o'er its broken roof-tree rise The starry arches of the skies; And in your lightest word shall be The thunder of an ebbing sea. NOCTURNE 'Tis not my voice now speaks; but a bird In darkling forest hollows a sweet throat-- Pleads on till distant echo too hath heard And doubles every note: So love that shrouded dwells in mystery Would cry and waken thee.