And she stood like a beautiful thought That a godhead of love had wrought.... How strange that the Power begot it Only to kill it and rot it! THE DEAD OREAD Her heart is still and leaps no more With holy passion when the breeze, Her whilom playmate, as before, Comes with the language of the bees, Sad songs her mountain cedars sing, And water-music murmuring. Her calm, white feet,--once fleet and fast As Daphne's when a god pursued,-- No more will dance like sunlight past The gold-green vistas of the wood, Where every quailing floweret Smiled into life where they were set. Hers were the limbs of living light, And breasts of snow, as virginal As mountain drifts; and throat as white As foam of mountain waterfall; And hyacinthine curls, that streamed Like mountain mists, and gloomed and gleamed. Her presence breathed such scents as haunt Deep mountain dells and solitudes, Aromas wild,--like some wild plant That fills with sweetness all the woods;-- And comradeship with stars and skies Shone in the azure of her eyes. Her grave be by a mossy rock Upon the top of some high hill, Removed, remote from men who mock The myths, the dreams of life they kill; Where all of love and naught of lust May guard her solitary dust. PAX VOBISCUM I I know that from thine eyes The Spring her violets grew; Those bits of April skies, On which the green turf lies, Whereon they blossom blue. II I know that Summer wrought From thy sweet heart that rose, With such faint fragrance fraught,-- Its pale, poetic thought Of peace and deep repose.-- III That Autumn, like some god, From thy delicious hair,-- Lost sunlight 'neath the sod,-- Shot up this goldenrod To toss it everywhere. IV That Winter from thy breast The snowdrop's whiteness stole-- Much kinder than the rest-- Thy innocence confessed, The pureness of thy soul. AT REST I heard the dead man, where he lay Within the open coffin, say:-- "Why do they come to weep and cry Around me now?--Because I lie So silent, and my heart's at rest? Because the pistons of my blood No more in this machinery thud? And on these eyes, that once were blessed With magnetism and fire, are pressed The soldered eyelids, like a sheath? On which the icy hand of Death Hath laid invisible coins of lead Stamped with the image of his head?