To ——.

It burns again when noon is high;
Like molten gold ‘‘tis clothed in light,
‘Tis beautiful and glad as love,—
A joyous, soul-entrancing sight.

But now ‘t is fading in the west,
On the flowering heaven a withered leaf,
As faint as shadow on the grass
Thrown by a gleam of moonshine brief.

So life is born, grows up, and dies,
As cloud upon the world of light;
It comes in joy, and moves in love,
Then,—gently fades away in night.

—————

TO ——.

THERE is a grace upon the waving trees,
A beauty in the wide and flowing sea,
A glory is there in the rushing breeze,
Yet what are all these fairy things to me,
What by the side of such an one as thee?
They weigh as dust against the purest gold,
And all the words of fine society,
And all the famous thoughts great men have told,
By side of thee seem dull,—dull, heavy, and most cold.

If thou art lost to me, farewell, my heart!
There is one jewel for thy prizing here,
But how companionless and chill thou art,
If this great lustre, unto thee so dear,
Fall like an autumn leaf withered and sere,
And leave thee on the shore of time,—alone.
So shall this living earth be thy true bier,
Its every sound a wretched, mournful tone,
And all thy passion’s tears turned into hardest stone.