All day the heavy skies have lowered, Long beaten by autumnal rain; The lilac's withered leaves lie showered Where little rain-pools star the plain; All things that for a season flowered Sink back to earth again. Strange, then, that with the year's decrease And out of gathering dusk you rise Seeking love's ultimate surcease, Phantom, whose memory-haunted eyes Know that there never can be peace Hoped-for, till memory dies. In vain where these dead leaves lie strown Where all things, bending earthward, fail, Like a young spirit newly flown, Flower-fragile, blossom-like and pale, You search; and must fly back, a blown Rose leaf on the cold gale. You might have rested but for this: That love's intense flame burning through The shuddering body with a kiss Woke in the prisoned spirit, too, So keen an ecstasy of bliss As could, for all they made amiss, Nor life nor death undo. _COR CORDIUM_ Deep in a heart, beneath o'er-hanging boughs, Love built himself a house, And whoso entered in, Love bade him stay, Nor ever from that feast to come away Dissatisfied or weary of the fare Love set him there. Forever through the groves and glades Kind thoughts went softly to and fro, And memories like white-footed maids With gentle tread would come and go Among the ever-garrulous trees. And through the branches overhead I know not what sweet spirits strayed, Or what commandant spirit led Their mazy dances, but one played So deftly on a psaltery That they for joy must needs keep singing; All the chambers of Love's house With that sweet minstrelsy were ringing. Faces to the windows came, Tears to happy eyelids started, Feeling, as by sudden flame, Their cares and their sad hearts disparted, Each old clinging sorrow dead. All who ever guested there To each other, murmuring, said: "In this heart breathes purer air, The thoughts that move across this sky Have had a more mysterious birth, Are lovelier, float more statelily Than clouds across the sky of earth." All guests within that heart's deep wood, All friends together in that house, High converse held with an aerial brood, With spirit-folk kept delicate carouse; None ever turned ungreeted from that door. (Sorrow himself was guest a weary while,) But yesterday when I passed by once more, Met me no welcoming smile, Nor any breath the unwavering branch to stir, Silent each glad aerial chorister; Three drowsy poppies brooded by the wall, Lonely and tall.