IRIS, HER BOOK. Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing, - Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. 265 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, The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters! 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. Saying, unsaddened, — This shall soon be faded, 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, 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; And lay her where the violets blow. But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; 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, The acorns and the chestnuts fall, 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, Shall pipe for her an evening mass. At last the rootlets of the trees Shall find the prison where she lies, |