At this last hour, O Death, within thy heart Hast thou no pity? Shall the night be dumb Nor ever from thy lips the low words come, Giving once more the old sweet wanderings? Shall yearning lips for ever stand apart Shadowed beneath the darkness of thy wings? J. W. C. C. 1872. There was a time, Love, when I strove to tell Our love but newly won: and tried to sing In broken verse that scarcely found a wing Some praise of all the beauty that doth dwell Beneath long lashes: But then came the spell Of love possessed, and I no more dared bring,-- Thy hand in mine,--the old verse offering Lest any spoken word should sound ‘farewell.’ Song at the best is but a cry for love Not love itself and ere our paths had met We cried to one another through the maze That men call life:--until the moon above-- Our steadfast moon of love that’s not yet set-- Had drawn our feet into the selfsame ways. J. C. C. _July, 1878._ Ah! Love, I know thou hast no power to bring Those lips once more to my lips; those sweet eyes, Back to where once they dreamed so near to mine.-- I know that not again on Earth shall cling Those fair white arms, and not till all Time dies Shall these hands in her loosened hair entwine. There is no might can give back to the Spring The lowliest flower dead under summer skies. Yet thou can’st tell me wandering by what stream And in what fields of night her white feet tread. Have I not wandered, Love, in many a dream? Has she not too in dreaming wanderèd? Then send her soul now to some garden fair That my soul too may meet and wander there. J. W. C. C. The moon that leans o’er yonder fleecy lawn Lights a white path where wandering souls may stray From earth as high as heaven: and when the day Shall pass night’s dusky curtains, newly-drawn, And swiftly with the footing of a fawn Leaps up, from cloud to cloud, till all the gray Burns crimson--then our feet may find a way From East to West led by the feet of dawn. Yet now how far apart stand North and South And that one face and mine! Ah, not so far! For at the call of one remembered word I hear again that voice which first I heard When day dawned in the smile about her mouth And in her eyes I saw the morning Star. J. C. C. 1873. Death speaks one word and all Love’s speech is dumb And on Love’s parted lips that breathe farewell Death’s marble finger lays its mystic spell And bears the unuttered message to the tomb, From whose closed door no whispered echoes come To break the discord of the tolling bell That sounds through city lane and woodland dell With the sad burthen of Love’s martyrdom.