What need of words, when lips that might have spoken Clung close to mine? And through the shadowed silence long unbroken, This hand in thine, There came from lowered lids such speech as lingers When Love grows dumb, And muted strings yield up to unseen fingers Sweet strains to come. II. But now! Ah now! what love left half-unheeded Or half untold, Each little word those quivering lips conceded Has turned to gold. I hoard them all as misers hoard their treasure In secret store, Till once again Love finds that muted measure As once before. J. C. C. FOR MUSIC. O winged Love! bear those red lips to mine, That at one draught together we may drain This Cup of Life that holds Love’s magic wine, Then turn with lip to lip and drink again, O Winged Love! Or waft me as a rose to where she lies And hide me with thy hands within her breast. That my bruised petals, wakened by her sighs, May live one hour, then cease, and sink to rest, O Winged Love! J. C. C. 1873. LINES WRITTEN ON A PAGE OF A YOUNG GIRL’S ALBUM AT RAGATZ, AUGUST 1889. Just as a dream of music never heard May charm our spirit with its mystic spell, This little page without one written word Speaks more than words can tell: Fair as the unchanging fields of Alpine snow, That hide the buried and the unborn spring, Its silence guards all secrets that we know And all that time may bring: Bearing sweet memories of past hours held dear For all whose youth is flying, or has flown, And softly whispering in a maiden’s ear A name as yet unknown. J. C. C. My love is fair and yet not made so fair As though fed only with the sun and sky For now some viewless vision fills the air And laughing lips grow mute--she knows not why, And on her eyelids fallen unaware The shadow as of passing tears doth lie! Of tears unwept, born of an unknown care That dwells beyond the flight of memory. Ah, sweet, into thy beauty there could come No better thing: the earth that holds thy feet Must bring earth’s stain upon them where they meet The path not made for thee--and the wind’s breath That speaks not unto others but is dumb, Whispers to thee of Life and Love and Death. J. C. C. 1875. ON A PICTURE. BY E. BURNE-JONES. Sad swift return of old love unforgot, And passion of sweet lips that may not meet, And trembling eyes that, like to weary feet, Press close unto the goal yet touch it not, Ah! Love, what hinders unto these the lot Of common lovers? Shall no hour complete This sweetness half-begun, no new day greet The old love freed of the old stain and blot?