Night Comes Creeping

Night comes creeping slowly o'er me,
Like a vapor cold and gray;
Dim the track that lies before me,
Lost the lingering smile of day.

As a river, nearing ocean,
Drops the brooklet's merry bell,
I forget hope's wild emotion;
Love and life, farewell, farewell!

Eyes above me raining sorrow,
Lips too tender to be true,
In the sunshine of tomorrow
Glow and sweetness shall renew.

I have trod a weary measure,
Fairy-tales no more I tell.
False is pain, and fleeting pleasure;
Love and life, farewell, farewell!

Softly through the darkened heaven,
Like a vision in the night,
Float the purple wings of even;
No more laughter, no more light.

Close mine eyes, worn out with weeping,
Weary pulses rest as well!
In the dust and silence sleeping,
Love and life, farewell, farewell!

The river flows and flows away,
A lonely stream through forests gray,
No rippled rapids o'er it play;
Forever and forever.
As silent as a winter's night,
With purple heavens all alight,
And planets shining strangely bright;
So quiet is the river.

No found nor fall the vision finds,
And in no devious course it winds,
But straight from where the sunset shines,
Forever and forever.
A mystery of shade and gleam,
O'er hidden rocks glides on the stream,
Like sleep above a fearful dream;
So quiet is the river.

In streams pure silver in the sun,
Slow, sullen lead, with storms begun,
And golden green when day is done,
Forever and forever.
A flow of pearl in moonlight cold,
With moonless midnight onward rolled,
Blacker than lethe streamed of old.
So quiet is the river.

Oh, water! by the waves serene,
As tranquil hours a life hath seen,
No more to be as they have been
Forever and forever.
For underneath its restless flow,
Too black for light's full noon to show,
Lie broken rocks no mortals know.
So quiet is the river.

Segovia And Madrid

IT sings to me in sunshine,
It whispers all day long,
My heartache like an echo
Repeats the wistful song:
Only a quaint old love-lilt,
Wherein my life is hid,—
“My body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid!”

I dream, and wake, and wonder,
For dream and day are one,
Alight with vanished faces,
And days forever done.
They smile and shine around me
As long ago they did;
For my body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid!

Through inland hills and forests
I hear the ocean breeze,
The creak of straining cordage,
The rush of mighty seas,
The lift of angry billows
Through which a swift keel slid;
For my body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid.

O fair-haired little darlings
Who bore my heart away!
A wide and woful ocean
Between us roars to-day;
Yet am I close beside you
Though time and space forbid;
My body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid.

If I were once in heaven,
There would be no more sea;
My heart would cease to wander,
My sorrows cease to be;
My sad eyes sleep forever,
In dust and daisies hid,
And my body leave Segovia.
—Would my soul forget Madrid?

The curving beach and shining bay,
Stretch from the cliff-foot far away,
Where sailing dreams of ships go by
And trace their spars against the sky.
A belt of woodland, dense and dark,
The distant beacon's flashing spark,
The moth-white sails that wing-and-wing
Up from the purple ocean sprean;
One and all, in the perfect hour,
Open to life its perfect flower;
Though the ardent rose is dim and dead,
Though the cool Spring-daisies all are fled,
The lily unfolds its tintless calm
And the goblin anthers are spiced with balm.

Come, my soul, from thy silent cell!
Know the healing of Nature's spell.
The soft wild waves that rush and leap,
Sing one song from the hoary deep;
The south wind knows its own refrain
As it speeds the cloud o'er heaven's blue main.
'Lose thyself, thyself to win:
Grow from without thee, not within.'

Leave thy thought and care alone,
Let the dead for the dead make moan;
Gather from earth and air and sea
The pulseless peace they keep for thee.
Ring on ring of sight and sound
Shall hide thy heart in a calm profound,
Where the works of men and the ways of earth
Shall never enter with tears or mirth,
And the love of kind shall kinder be
From nature than humanity.