Part 4

I heard the little lady’s lover say, “O rose-white daisy, dying in the dew, Breathing your half-crushed, fainting life away Under her footstep,--would that I were you! For when how cruelly she wounded you, She turns to see in pitying distress, With murmured words of sorrowing tenderness Close to her lips your bruised leaves she will press;-- O drooping daisy, would that I were you!”

INDIAN SUMMER.

Linger, O Day! Let not thy purple haze Fade utterly away! The Indian Summer lays Her tender touch upon the emerald hills; Exquisite thrills Of delicate gladness fill the blue-veined air. More restful even than rest, The passionate sweetness that is everywhere. Soft splendors in the west Touch with the charm of coming changefulness The yielding hills. O linger, Day! Let not the dear Delicious languor of thy dreamfulness Vanish away! Serene and clear, The brooding stillness of the delicate air, Dreamier than the dreamiest depths of sleep, Falls softly everywhere. Still let me keep One little hour longer tryst with thee, O Day of days! Lean down to me, In tender beauty of thy amethyst haze! Upon the vine Rich, clinging clusters of the ripening grape Hang silent in the sun; But in each one Beats with full throb the quickening purple wine Whose pulse shall round the perfect fruit to shape. Too dreamy even to dream, I hear the murmuring bee and gliding stream; The singing silence of the afternoon Lulling my drowsy senses till they swoon Into still deeper rest; While soul released from sense, Passionate and intense, With quick, exultant quiver in its wings, Prophetic longing for diviner things, Escapes the unthinking breast;-- Pierces rejoicing through the shining mist, But shrinks before the keen, cold ether, kissed By burning stars: delirious foretaste Of joys the soul--(too eager in its haste To grasp ere won by the diviner right Of birth through death)--is far too weak to bear! Bathed in earth’s lesser light, Slipping down slowly through the shining air, Once more it steals into the dreaming breast, Praying again to be its patient guest; And as my senses wake, The beautiful glad soul again to take, The twilight falls;-- A lonely wood-thrush calls The Day away. Thou needst not linger, Day! My soul and I Would hold high converse of diviner things Than blossom underneath thy tender sky. Unfold thy wings! Wrap softly round thyself thy delicate haze, And gliding down the slowly darkening ways, Vanish away!

“LAST--AN AMETHYST.”

O thou in whom, not knowing, I believe, If in these uttered phrases there is naught Of that supreme, deep language of Thy thought Men call religion--yet wilt Thou receive The finished task; though I have dared to leave Unseen, but not unfelt, though best unsought, As Thou thyself to my own heart hast taught, The solemn truths that so will strongest cleave Unto men’s souls. My hand would fain forget Its eager cunning, ere the fingers kissed By one whose love Thou gavest me, should yet Yield all to joy, uncaring if they list,-- Thy angels--from the heavenly parapet Of precious stones: “the twelfth, an amethyst!”

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note

Hyphenation in the Table of Contents was made consistent with hyphenation in the titles of the poems.