Like an empty stage The gardens are empty and cold; The marble terraces rise Like vases that hold no flowers; The lake is frozen, the fountain still; The marble walls and the seats Are useless and beautiful. Ah, here Where the wind and the dusk and the snow are All is silent and white and sad! Why do I think of you? Why does your name remorselessly Strike through my heart? Why does my soul awaken and shudder? Why do I seem to hear Cries as lovely as music? Surely you never came Into these pale snow-gardens; Surely you never stood Here in the twilight with me; Yet here I have lingered and dreamed Of a face as subtle as music, Of golden hair, and of eyes Like a child's ... I have felt on my brow Your finger-tips, plaintive as music ... O Wonder of all wonders, O Love-- Wrought of sweet sounds and of dreaming!-- Why do you not emerge From the lilac pale petals of dusk, And come to me here in the gardens Where the wind and the snow are? Beauty and Peace are here-- And unceasing music-- And a loneliness chill and wistful, Like the feeling of death. Like a crystal lily a star Leans from its leaves of silver And gleams in the sky; And golden and faint in the shadows You wait indistinctly,-- Like a phantom lamp that appears In the mirror of distance that hovers By the window at twilight-- You have come--and we stand together, With questioning eyes-- Dreaming and cold and ghostly In an empty garden that seems Like an empty stage. ZOË AKINS A SONG FOR WINTER Speak not of snow and cold and rime Now they prevail. Would you have joy in winter-time, Think of the pale New green that comes, of blossoming lilacs think, Larkspur, and borders of the fringèd pink. And sing, if winter grants you heart to sing, Of summer and of spring. Would you secure some happiness In frosty hours, Trust to the eye external less Than to the powers Of inward sight that even now may show Opaline seas, blue hilltops, and the glow Of daybreak on the glades where thrushes sing In summer and in spring. Gaze not on fettered lake and brook And sullen skies, But in your happy memory look Where beauty lies As once it was, as it shall be again When sunshine floods the fields of blowing grain, And sing, as must who would in winter sing, Of summer and of spring. MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER WINGS AND SONG "I MEANT TO DO MY WORK TO-DAY" _I meant to do my work to-day-- But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree And a butterfly flitted across the field, And all the leaves were calling me._