Songs And Sea Voices

When pipings from the leafy burn By genial satyr lonely played, With something of a soulful turn Inspire the solitary shade; Or when from distant pasture glade Issues the calm of bleating herds, Or when the gold light 'gins to fade And eve wakes silvery with twinkling notes of birds; Then low my heart shall lie in nest As it lies in the wild grove here; I cannot fancy heaven's rest More perfect and more fruitful clear, I cannot vision spot more dear, More blissful for the wandering one? LINES WRITTEN IN A WOOD A holier urn for the last tear Than this retreat where all my toil on earth seems done. ALOOF The earth is so fair, so fair, And my spirit so deeply laden, I look on thy sunlit hair And bless thee, lone guileless maiden! O thou art a beauty, a dawn, A new life but lately risen! And I a mute spirit soon gone To the deep of my outerworld prison. O stay thou afar, afar! And thy voice let it songless linger; Thy brow is the haunt of a star Writ by a seraph's finger; Which soon would lessen and fade And set, if I ventured nigher In silence I love thee and shade, In delight that is dreaming desire. ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GIRL If any radiant soul ascends To fields more fair and green And bathes in beauty that transcends, It must be so with Jean. Scarce did I know her, yet I knew Her voice, that grave sweet tone Which womanhood bestows like dew On children al... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.