And yet a few there may be who will feel My deep devotion and my true desires, And know that these unhappy words reveal Only new images in changeless fires; And they perchance will linger with a sigh To think that beauty such as thine must die. A SEA GULL Grey wings, O grey wings against a cloud, Over the rough waves flashing, Whose was the scream, startling and loud, Keen through the skies,--was it thine, Over the moaning wind and the whine Of the wide seas dashing? Whose was the scream that I heard In the midst of the hurrying air? Was it thine, lost bird, Or the voice of an old despair Chanting from years long dead, Inexorable spirit flying On tempest wings that passed and fled Through the storm crying? DOMESDAY The garlands and the songs of May Shall welcome in the Judgment Day; About the basking country-side Blossom the souls of them that died. O Dead awake! Arise in bloom Upon the joyous dawn of doom. They rise up from the bleeding earth In gracious legions of re-birth, Each as a flower or a tree Of verdant immortality. And hosts of glad-voiced angels sing In the rippling groves of spring. From the grave of youth there grows A passionately-petaled rose, Where the virgin whitely lies A lily fair as Paradise. And in that old oak's leafy glee Some gouty sire makes sport of me. O Dead of yore and yesterday All hail the resurrecting May! Beside you in the flowering grass The feet of youth and love shall pass, And we that greet you with a smile Shall join you in a little while. TO A PASSEPIED BY SCARLATTI Strange little tune so thin and rare Like scents of roses of long ago, Quavering lightly upon the strings Of a violin, and dying there With a dancing flutter of delicate wings; Thy courtly joy and thy gentle woe, Thy gracious gladness and plaintive fears Are lost in the clamorous age we know, And pale like a moon in the lurid day; A phantom of music, strangely fled From the princely halls of the quiet dead, Down the long lanes of the vanished years Echoing frailly and far away. ELEGY FOR ANTINOUS Come, let us hasten hence and weep no more, The sinking sea flows on its tranquil ways, Night looms serenely at the eastern door And trails the last cloud into lifeless haze. Antinous is dead, we kneel before The portals of our past in vain, nor raise The laughing phantoms of our yesterdays Upon this desolate and empty shore. Now deepening pools of shadow overflow Into the sea of dark; a far-off bell Sobs with a sweet vibration long and slow A last farewell, forevermore, farewell; And will He wake and hear? We cannot tell; And will He answer? Ah, we do not know. SONG O crimson rose, O crimson rose, Crushed lightly in two little hands; A child's soft kiss was in your heart, A child's warm breath was in your soul.