To the branch that cannot blossom
How cold doth April pass!
As lovers, when love is over,
Remembering seem men dead,
Down on the warm bright daisies,
Earth's lover, I laid my head;
And whence or why I know not,
At the touch my eyes were dim,
And I knew that these were the daisies
That Keats felt grow o'er him.

George Edward Woodberry.

DIVINE AWE

To tremble, when I touch her hands,
With awe that no man understands;
To feel soft reverence arise
When, lover-sweet, I meet her eyes;
To see her beauty grow and shine
When most I feel this awe divine,
Whate'er befall me, this is mine;
And where about the room she moves,
My spirit follows her, and loves.

George Edward Woodberry.

STRONG AS DEATH

O DEATH, when thou shalt come to me
From out thy dark, where she is now,
Come not with graveyard smell on thee,
Or withered roses on thy brow.

WISE

Come not, O Death, with hollow tone,

And soundless step, and clammy handLo, I am now no less alone

Than in thy desolate, doubtful land;

But with that sweet and subtle scent
That ever clung about her (such
As with all things she brushed was blent);
And with her quick and tender touch.

With the dim gold that lit her hair,
Crown thyself, Death; let fall thy tread
So light that I may dream her there,
And turn upon my dying bed.

And through my chilling veins shall flame.
My love, as though beneath her breath;
And in her voice but call my name,

And I will follow thee, O Death.

WISE

231

Henry Cuyler Bunner.

AN apple orchard smells like wine;

A succory flower is blue;

Until Grief touched these eyes of mine,

Such things I never knew.

And now indeed I know so plain

Why one would like to cry
When sprouts are full of April rain -

Such lonely folk go by!

DARK, thinned, beside the wall of stone,
The box dripped in the air;

Its odor through my house was blown
Into the chamber there.

Remote and yet distinct the scent,
The sole thing of the kind,

As though one spoke a word half meant
That left a sting behind.

I knew not Grief would go from me
And naught of it be plain,

Except how keen the box can be

After a fall of rain.

Lizette Woodworth Reese.

THE FOUR WINDS

WIND of the North,

Wind of the Norland snows,

Wind of the winnowed skies and sharp, clear stars-
Blow cold and keen across the naked hills,
And crisp the lowland pools with crystal films,
And blur the casement-squares with glittering ice,
But go not near my love.

1

THE OLD SOUL

233

Wind of the West,

Wind of the few, far clouds,

Wind of the gold and crimson sunset lands

Blow fresh and pure across the peaks and plains,
And broaden the blue spaces of the heavens,
And sway the grasses and the mountain pines,
But let my dear one rest.

Wind of the East,

Wind of the sunrise seas,

Wind of the clinging mists and gray, harsh rains— Blow moist and chill across the wastes of brine, And shut the sun out, and the moon and stars, And lash the boughs against the dripping eaves, Yet keep thou from my love.

But thou, sweet wind!

Wind of the fragrant South,

Wind from the bowers of jasmine and of rose!
Over magnolia blooms and lilied lakes
And flowering forests come with dewy wings,
And stir the petals at her feet, and kiss

The low mound where she lies.

Charles Henry Lüders.

THE OLD SOUL

"Not in entire forgetfulness."

THE Old Soul came from far,
Beyond the unlit bound;

There had gone out a star,

And a great world was drowned,

Since birth and death and birth
Were hers, upon the earth.

For she had robed anew

Time and time out of mind;
And, as the sphere of dew
Unshapes into the wind,
Her raiment oft had cast
Into the wasting past.

There was no dizzying height
She had not sometime trod,
No dungeon known of night
But she had felt its rod;
The saint, assoiled from sin
The saint's arch-foe — had been!

At cruel feasts she sate,

Where heartless mirth ran high;
Through famine's portal strait
Had fled with wailful cry;
All human fates had proved,
And those from man removed.

Yea, she had worn the guise

Of creatures lashed and spurned

Even of those whose eyes

May not on heaven be turned;
No house too dark or base
To be her tarrying-place!

The Old Soul came from far;

And, all lives having known,