It is the voice and shadow of the slayer, Slayer of loves, sweet world, slayer of dreams; Make sad thy voice with sober plaint and prayer; Make gray thy woods, and darken all thy streams. Black grows the river, blacker drifts the eddy: The sky is grey; the woods are cold below: Oh make thy bosom, and thy sad lips ready, For the cold kisses of the folding snow. EASTER EVE. Hear me, Brother, gently met; Just a little, turn not yet, Thou shalt laugh, and soon forget: Now the midnight draweth near. I have little more to tell; Soon with hollow stroke and knell, Thou shalt count the palace bell, Calling that the hour is here. Burdens black and strange to bear, I must tell, and thou must share, Listening with that stony stare, Even as many a man before. Years have lightly come and gone In their jocund unison. But the tides of life roll on---- They remember now no more. Once upon a night of glee, In an hour of revelry, As I wandered restlessly, I beheld with burning eye, How a pale procession rolled Through a quarter quaint and old, With its banners and its gold, And the crucifix went by. Well I knew that body brave That was pierced and hung to save, But my flesh was now a grave For the soul that gnashed within. He that they were bearing by, With their banners white and high, He was pure, and foul was I, And his whiteness mocked my sin. Ah, meseemed that even he, Would not wait to look on me, In my years and misery, Things that he alone could heal. In mine eyes I felt the flame Of a rage that nought could tame, And I cried and cursed his name, Till my brain began to reel. In a moment I was 'ware, How that many watching there, Fearfully with blanch and stare, Crossed themselves, and shrank away; Then upon my reeling mind, Like a sharp blow from behind, Fell the truth, and left me blind, Hopeless now, and all astray. O'er the city wandering wide, Seeking but some place to hide, Where the sounds of mirth had died, Through the shaken night I stole; From the ever-eddying stream Of the crowds that did but seem Like processions in a dream To my empty echoing soul. Till I came at last alone To a hidden street of stone, Where the city's monotone On the silence fell no more. Then I saw how one in white With a footstep mute and light, Through the shadow of the night Like a spirit paced before. And a sudden stillness came Through my spirit and my frame, And a spell without a name Held me in his mystic track. Though his presence seemed so mild, Yet he led me like a child, With a yearning strange and wild, That I dared not turn me back.