For thou art more than life, And if our fate should set Life and my love at strife, How could I then forget I love thee more than life? Christine The beauty of the northern dawns, Their pure, pale light is thine; Yet all the dreams of tropic nights Within thy blue eyes shine. Not statelier in their prisoning seas The icebergs grandly move, But in thy smile is youth and joy, And in thy voice is love. Thou art like Hecla's crest that stands So lonely, proud, and high, No earthly thing may come between Her summit and the sky. The sun in vain may strive to melt Her crown of virgin snow-- But the great heart of the mountain glows With deathless fire below. Expectation Roll on, O shining sun, To the far seas, Bring down, ye shades of eve, The soft, salt breeze! Shine out, O stars, and light My darling's pathway bright, As through the summer night She comes to me. No beam of any star Can match her eyes; Her smile the bursting day In light outvies. Her voice--the sweetest thing Heard by the raptured spring When waking wild-woods ring-- She comes to me. Ye stars, more swiftly wheel, O'er earth's still breast; More wildly plunge and reel In the dim west! The earth is lone and lorn, Till the glad day be born, Till with the happy morn She comes to me. To Flora When April woke the drowsy flowers, And vagrant odors thronged the breeze, And bluebirds wrangled in the bowers, And daisies flashed along the leas, And faint arbutus strove among Dead winter's leaf-strewn wreck to rise, And nature's sweetly jubilant song Went murmuring up the sunny skies, Into this cheerful world you came, And gained by right your vernal name. I think the springs have changed of late, For "Arctics" are my daily wear, The skies are turned to cold gray slate, And zephyrs are but draughts of air; But you make up whatever we lack, When we, too rarely, come together, More potent than the almanac, You bring the ideal April weather; When you are with us we defy The blustering air, the lowering sky; In spite of Winter's icy darts, We've spring and sunshine in our hearts. In fine, upon this April day, This deep conundrum I will bring: Tell me the two good reasons, pray, I have, to say you are like spring? [You give it up?] Because we love you-- And see so very little of you. A Haunted Room In the dim chamber whence but yesterday Passed my belovèd, filled with awe I stand; And haunting Loves fluttering on every hand Whisper her praises who is far away. A thousand delicate fancies glance and play On every object which her robes have fanned, And tenderest thoughts and hopes bloom and expand In the sweet memory of her beauty's ray. Ah! could that glass but hold the faintest trace Of all the loveliness once mirrored there, The clustering glory of the shadowy hair That framed so well the dear young angel face! But no, it shows my own face, full of care, And my heart is her beauty's dwelling-place.