He yearned toward the sun in vain, That warmed the lives of other men. CONVENTION. He falters on the threshold, She lingers on the stair: Can it be that was his footstep? Can it be that she is there? Without is tender yearning, And tender love is within; They can hear each other's heart-beats, But a wooden door is between. THE POET'S FRIENDS. The robin sings in the elm; The cattle stand beneath, Sedate and grave, with great brown eyes And fragrant meadow-breath. They listen to the flattered bird, The wise-looking, stupid things; And they never understand a word Of all the robin sings. NO LOVE LOST. A ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. 1862. BERTHA--_Writing from Venice_. I. On your heart I feign myself fallen--ah, heavier burden, Darling, of sorrow and pain than ever shall rest there! I take you Into these friendless arms of mine, that you cannot escape me; Closer and closer I fold you, and tell you all, and you listen Just as you used at home, and you let my sobs and my silence Speak, when the words will not come--and you understand and forgive me. --Ah! no, no! but I write, with the wretched bravado of distance, What you must read unmoved by the pity too far for entreaty. II. Well, I could never have loved him, but when he sought me and asked me,-- When to the men that offered their lives, the love of a woman Seemed so little to give!--I promised the love that he asked me, Sent him to war with my kiss on his lips, and thought him my hero. Afterward came the doubt, and out of long question, self-knowledge,-- Came that great defeat, and the heart of the nation was withered; Mine leaped high with the awful relief won of death. But the horror, Then, of the crime that was wrought in that guilty moment of rapture,-- Guilty as if my will had winged the bullet that struck him,-- Clung to me day and night, and dreaming I saw him forever, Looking through battle-smoke with sorrowful eyes of upbraiding, Or, in the moonlight lying gray, or dimly approaching, Holding toward me his arms, that still held nearer and nearer, Folded about me at last ... and I would I had died in the fever!-- Better then than now, and better than ever hereafter! III.