There's one merry maiden hath carelessly crossed The threshold I dread, and she never discerns In keepsakes she thanks me for, lessons she learns, A sign of the grace that I squandered and lost. My birthplace to Meg is but window and stone, My knowledge a wilderness where she can stray, To keep what she gathers or throw it away; So Meg lets me laugh with her, mourning alone. A FELLOW PASSENGER UNKNOWN Maiden, hastening to be wise, Maiden, reading with a rage, Envy fluttereth round the page Whereupon thy downward eyes Rove and rest, and melt maybe-- Virgin eyes one may not see, Gathering as the bee Takes from cherry tree; As the robin's bill Frets the window sill, Maiden, bird, and bee, Three from me half hid, Doing what we did When our minds were free. Those romantic pages wist What romance is in the look. Oh, that I could be so bold, So romantic as to bold Half an hour the pensive wrist, And the burden of the book. NUREMBERG CEMETERY Outside quaint Albert Durer's town, Where Freedom set her stony crown, Whereof the gables red and brown Curve over peaceful forts that screen Spring bloom and garden lanes between The scarp and counter-scarp. Her feet One highday of Saint Paraclete Were led along the dolorous street By stepping stones towards love and heaven And pauses of the soul twice seven. Beneath the flowerless trees, where May, Proud of her orchards' fine array, Abates her claim and holds no sway, Past iron tombs, the useless shields Of cousins slain in Elsass fields, The girl, with fair neck meekly bowed. Mores bravely through a sauntering crowd, Hastening, as she was bid, to breathe Above the breathless, and enwreathe, With pansies earned by spinster thrift, And lillybells, a wooer's gift, A stone which glimmers in the shade Of yonder silent colonnade, Over against the slates that hold Marie in lines of slender gold, A token wrought by fictive fingers, A garland, last year's offering, lingers, Hung out of reach, and facing north. And lo! thereout a wren flies forth, And Gertrude, straining on toetips, Just touches with her prayerful lips The warm home which a bird unskilled In grief and hope knows how to build. The maid can mourn, but not the wren. Birds die, death's shade belongs to men. 1877. MORTAL THING NOT WHOLLY CLAY J'aurai passe sur la terre, N'ayant rien aime que l'amour. Mortal thing not wholly clay, Mellowing only to decay, Speak, for airs of spring unfold Wistful sorrows long untold. Under a poplar turning green, Say for age that seems so bold, Oh, the saddest words to say, "This might have been."