Oh, my heart, when life is done,
How happy will the hour be!
All its restless errands run:
Noontide past, and set of sun,
And the long, long night begun;
How happy will the hour be!

Sunlight, like a butterfly,
Drop down and kiss the roses;
Starlight, softly come and lie
Where dreamful slumber closes;
But Death, sweet Death, be nigh, be neigh,
Where love in peace reposes!

Along yon purple rim of hills,
How bright the sunset glory lies!
Its radiance spans the western skies,
And all the slumberous valley fills.

Broad shafts of lucid crimson, blent
With lustrous pearl in massed white,
And one great spear of amber light
That flames o’er half the firmament.

Vague, murmurous sounds the breezes bear;
A thousand subtle breaths of balm,
Blown shoreward from the isles of calm,
Float in upon the tranced air.

And, muffling all its giant roar,
The restless waste of waters, rolled
To one broad sea of liquid gold,
Moves singing up the shining shore!

A breath of balm—of orange bloom!
By what strange fancy wafted me,
Through the lone starlight of the room?
And suddenly I seem to see

The long, low vale, with tawny edge
Of bills, within the sunset glow;
Cool vine-rows through the cactus hedge,
And fluttering gleams of orchard snow.

Far off, the slender line of white
Against the blue of ocean’s crest;
The slow sun sinking into night,
A quivering opal in the west.

Somewhere a stream sings, far away;
Somewhere from out the hidden groves,
And dreamy as the dying day,
Comes the soft coo of mourning doves.

One moment all the world is peace!
The years like clouds are rolled away,
And I am on those sunny leas,
A child, amid the flowers at play.

La Flor Del Salvador

The Daffodil sang: “Darling of the sun
Am I, am I, that wear
His color everwhere.”

The Violet pleaded soft, in undertone:
“Am I less perfect made?
Or hidden in the shade
So close and deep, that heaven may not see
Its own fair hue in me? ”

The Rose stood up, full-blown-
Right royal as a Queen upon her throne:
“Nay, but I reign alone, ”
She said, “with all the hearts for my very own.”

One whispered, with faint flush, not far away:
“I am the eye of the Day,
And all men love me; ” and, with drowsy sighs,
A Lotus, from the still pond where she lay,
Breathed: “I am precious balm for weary eyes.”

Only the fair Field-Lily, slim and tall,
Spake not. For all;
Spake not and did not stir,
Lapsed in some far and tender memory.
Softly I questioned her:
“And what of thee? ”
And the winds were lulled about the bended head,
And the warm sunlight swathed her as in flame,
While the awed answer came:
“Hath He not said? ”

“The song were sweeter and better
If only the thought were glad.”
Be hidden the chafe of the fetter,
The scars of the wounds you have had;
Be silent of strife and endeavor,
But shout of the victory won!
You may sit in the shadow forever,
If only you’ll sing of the sun.

There are hearts, you must know, over tender
With the wine of the joy-cup of years;
One might dim for a moment the splendor
Of eyes unaccustomed to tears:
So sing, if you must, with the gladness
That brimmed the lost heart of your youth,
Lest you breath, in the song and its sadness,
The secret of life at its truth.

O, violets, born of the valley,
You are sweet in the sun and the dew;
But your sisters, in yonder dim alley,
Are sweeter-and paler-than you!
O, birds, you are blith in the meadow,
But your mates of the forest I love;
And sweeter their songs in the shadow,
Though sadder the singing thereof!

To the weary in life’s wildernesses
The soul of the singer belongs.
Small need, in your green, sunny places,
Glad dwellers, have you of my songs.
For you the blith birds of the meadow
Trill silverly sweet, every one;
But I can not sit in the shadow
Forever, and sing of the sun.

From the shadowy shores of Dreamland,
In a far and ethereal zone,
I have come unto earth; and I know not
Where the beautiful Day has flown!

For gazing, at early dawning,
Where bright in the radiant East
The glittering sun swam, golden,
Through billows of crimson mist-

My soul floated out on the ether,
Swift-winged and free as the Light-
Nor ever, till dawn grew to darkness,
Returned from its airy flight.

I never shall know of its journey:
I have questioned, all in vain,
The source of the wonderful visions
That are thronging my puzzled brain.

Strange voices; strange, beautiful faces;
Strange fashions of mien and dress,
And words whose mystical meaning
I have striven in vain to guess;

Strange cities, that mirror the sunlight
From minaret, mosque, and dome;
And tropical islands, up-springing
From couches of feathery foam-

All glimmer, and gleam, and glisten,
Floating on in a magical stream,
Yet shadowed, and vague, and misty
As the memory of a dream.

And I stand, as at early dawning;
But where, in the radiant East,
The glittering sun swam, golden,
Through billows of crimson mist,

There is only this soft, white crescent,
And the daisy-faced stars, full-blown
In the garden of Night; and I know not
Where the beautiful Day has flown.

Beyond the flight of hours,
Beneath the rooted flowers,
Where winter rain, nor showers
Of April, fall;
Where days that say “Alas”
Forget to come, to pass;
And joy or grief that was,
Is ended all.

There never sunlight gleams;
There sleep begets not dreams;
Therein is voice of streams,
Nor voice of trees.
From shadows into sun,
From light to shadow won,
No shinning river run
To shining seas.

No birds of morning throat
Their joy from skies remote;
From the still leaves no note
On either hand;
No love-lorn nightingale,
That sings while stars wax pale,
And moonlight, as a veil,
Is on the land.

Many the dwellers are
Within that valley far,
Lit by nor sun nor star,
Where no dawn is;
Where sleep broods as a dove;
And love forgot of love,
The dead delights thereof
Can never miss.

Wherein is spoken word,
Nor any laughter heard;
The eyelids are not stirred
By touch of tears;
Wherein the poet’s brain
The rapture and the pain
Of song knows not again,
Through all the years.

Pale leaves of poppies shad
About the brows and head,
From whence the laurel, dead,
Is dropped to dust.
Strength laid in armor down
To mold, and on the gown
The mold, and on the crown
The mold and rust.

So evermore they lie:
The ages pass them by,
Them doth the Earth deny,
And Time forget;
Void in the years, the ways,
As a star loosed from space,
Upon whose vacant place
The sun is set.

With A Wreath Of Laurel

O winds, that ripple the long grass,
O winds, that kiss the jeweled sea,
Grow still and lingering as you pass,
About this laurel-tree!

The mountain knew you in the cloud
That turbans his dark brow; the sweet,
Cool rivers; and the woods that bowed
Before your pinions fleet.

With meadow-scents your breath is rife;
With cedar-odors, and with pine:
Now pause, and thrill with twofold life
Each spicy leaf I twine.

The laurel grows upon the hill
That looks across the western sea.
O winds, within the boughs be still;
O sun, shine tenderly;

And bird, sing soft about you nest;
I twine a wreath for other lands-
A grave! - nor wife nor child hath blest
With touch of loving hands

Where eyes are closed divine and young,
Dusked in a night no morn may break;
And stilled the poet-lips that sung,
In sleep no touch may wake;

While falls the venomed arrow-thrust,
And lips that hate hiss foul disgrace
And the sad heart is dust, and dust
The beautiful, sad face!

For him I pluck the laurel crown:
It ripened in the western breeze,
Where hills throw giant shadows down
Upon the golden seas.

And sunlight lingered in its leaves
From dawn to darkness-till the sky
Grew white with sudden stars; and waves
Sang to it constantly.

I weave, and strive to weave a tone,
A touch-that, somehow, when it lies
Upon his sacred dust, alone,
Beneath the English skies,

The sunlight of the arch it knew,
The calm that wrapt its native hill,
The love that wreathed its glossy hue,
May breath around it still!