IRIS, HER BOOK. I PRAY thee by the soul of her that bore thee, For Iris had no mother to infold her, She had not learned the mystery of awaking Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token! Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken? She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies, - And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing, Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her? What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her? Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven, And then Ah, God! But nay, it little matters: Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, If she had wherefore. Well! She longed, and knew not Had the world nothing she might live to care for? She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher. Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, Saying, unsaddened, This shall soon be faded, And double-hued the shining tresses braided, This her poor book is full of saddest follies, Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee, Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, UNDER THE VIOLETS. HER hands are cold; her face is white; Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; Shall say, that here a maiden lies And gray old trees of hugest limb Shall wheel their circling shadows round To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground, And drop their dead leaves on her mound. When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call, And, ripening in the autumn sun, The acorns and the chestnuts fall, Doubt not that she will heed them all. For her the morning choir shall sing When, turning round their dial-track, Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, Her little mourners, clad in black, The crickets, sliding through the grass, At last the rootlets of the trees Shall find the prison where she lies, |