H

CE QUI DURE

ow cold and wan the present lowers,

O my true Love! around us twain;
How little of the Past is ours!

How changed the friends who yet remain.

We cannot without envying view

The eyes with twenty summers gay;
For eyes 'neath which our childhood grew
Have long since passed from earth away.

Each hour still steals our youth; alas!

No hour will e'er the theft restore: There's but one thing that will not pass,The heart I loved thee with of yore.

That heart which plays in life its part,
With love elate, with loss forlorn,

Is still through all the child's pure heart
My mother gave when I was born.

That heart, where nothing new can light,

Where old thoughts draw their cherished breath,

It loves thee, dear, with all the might

That Life can wield in strife with Death.

If it of Death the conqueror be,

If there's in Man some nobler part

That wins him immortality,

Then thou hast, Love! that deathless heart.

I'

IF YOU BUT KNEW

IF YOU but knew the tears that fall

For life unloved and fireside drear,
Perhaps, before my lonely hall,

You would pass near.

If you but knew your power to thrill

My drooping soul by one pure glance,

One look across my window-sill

You'd cast perchance.

If you but knew what soothing balm
One heart can on another pour,
Would you not sit—a sister calm -
Beside my door?

And if you knew I loved you well,

And loved you too with all my heart,
You'd come to me, with me to dwell,
And ne'er depart.

WR

SEPARATION

E WANDERED down, at dawn of day,
A narrow path-heart close to heart;
At noon, upon the world's highway,
I walk to right, you left- apart.

No more we have our heaven together.
How bright is yours! How black is mine!
Your choice is still the sunniest weather,

I keep the side where naught will shine.
Where'er you walk, gleams round you play —
The very sand has diamond beads;
No beams e'er light with gladdening ray
The cold gray soil my footstep treads.

Bird-songs and whispers full of sweets,
Caressing, woo your eye and ear;
Your hair the breeze, adoring, greets;

Your lip the bee, entranced, draws near.

And I-I can but sing and sigh;

My heart's deep wound is ill at ease; From leaf-hid nests the fondling cry

Disturbs me more than it can please.

But Love! a sky forever bright

May make too keen our mortal joy;
The air's embrace has too much might;
The incense e'en of flowers may cloy.

Then yearns the soul for that calm rest
That closes round at closing day,
'With half-shut eye, on some true breast
To watch Life's fever ebb away.

Will you not come and take your seat

By that highway at evening-fall?
I'll wait you there. We two shall meet
Where one deep shadow wraps it all.

THE DEATH AGONY

E WHO are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!

YR

'Twill help me most some music faint to hear,
And pass away.

For song can loosen, link by link, each care
From life's hard chain.

So gently rock my griefs; but oh, beware!
To speak were pain.

I'm weary of all words: their wisest speech
Can naught reveal;

Give me the spirit-sounds minds cannot reach,
But hearts can feel.

Some melody which all my soul shall steep,
As tranced I lie,

Passing from visions wild to dreamy sleep,—
From sleep to die.

Ye who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!

Some sounds of music murmuring in my ear
Will smooth my way.

My nurse, poor shepherdess! I'd bid you seek;
Tell her my whim:

I want her near me, when I'm faint and weak
On the grave's brim.

I want to hear her sing, ere I depart,

Just once again,

In simple monotone to touch the heart
That Old World strain.

You'll find her still,- the rustic hovel gives
Calm hopes and fears;

But in this world of mine one rarely lives

Thrice twenty years.

Be sure you leave us with our hearts alone,
Only us two!

She'll sing to me in her old trembling tone,
Stroking my brow.

She only to the end will love through all
My good and ill;

So will the air of those old songs recall
My first years still.

And dreaming thus, I shall not feel at last
My heart-strings torn,

But all unknowing, the great barriers past,
Die as we're born.

Ye who are watching when my end draws near,
Speak not, I pray!

'Twill help me most some music faint to hear,
And pass away.

The above translations were all made by E. and R. E. Prothero.