Then speed thee on thy glorious race! The mother waits thy ringing pace; The father leans an anxious ear The thunder of thy hooves to hear; The lover listens, far away, To catch thy keen exultant neigh; And, where thy breathings roll and rise, The husband strains his eager eyes, And laugh of wife and baby-glee Ring out to greet and welcome thee. Then stretch away! and when at last The master's hand shall gently check Thy mighty speed, and hold thee fast, The world will pat thee on the neck. DEAD LEAVES DAWN As though a gipsy maiden with dim look, Sat crooning by the roadside of the year, So, Autumn, in thy strangeness, thou art here To read dark fortunes for us from the book Of fate; thou flingest in the crinkled brook The trembling maple's gold, and frosty-clear Thy mocking laughter thrills the atmosphere, And drifting on its current calls the rook To other lands. As one who wades, alone, Deep in the dusk, and hears the minor talk Of distant melody, and finds the tone, In some wierd way compelling him to stalk The paths of childhood over,--so I moan, And like a troubled sleeper, groping, walk. DUSK The frightened herds of clouds across the sky Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day Into the dusky forest-lands of gray And somber twilight. Far, and faint, and high The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry Sad as the wail of some poor castaway Who sees a vessel drifting far astray Of his last hope, and lays him down to die. The children, riotous from school, grow bold And quarrel with the wind, whose angry gust Plucks off the summer hat, and flaps the fold Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust. NIGHT Funereal Darkness, drear and desolate, Muffles the world. The moaning of the wind Is piteous with sobs of saddest kind; And laughter is a phantom at the gate Of memory. The long-neglected grate Within sprouts into flame and lights the mind With hopes and wishes long ago refined To ashes,--long departed friends await Our words of welcome: and our lips are dumb And powerless to greet the ones that press Old kisses there. The baby beats its drum, And fancy marches to the dear caress Of mother-arms, and all the gleeful hum Of home intrudes upon our loneliness. OVER THE EYES OF GLADNESS "The voice of One hath spoken, And the bended reed is bruised-- The golden bowl is broken, And the silver cord is loosed." Over the eyes of gladness The lids of sorrow fall, And the light of mirth is darkened Under the funeral pall. The hearts that throbbed with rapture In dreams of the future years, Are wakened from their slumbers, And their visions drowned in tears.