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There she rose as white as death,
Stars above and stars beneath;
Where the ripples brake in splendor
To a million, million starlets
Twinkling on lake-lilies tender,
Rocking to the ripple barlets....

[The French is by Bosquillon, which I translated as under, in a beautiful Swedish island in the Baltic, as I sat by the side of a fine clear stream of rock-water.]


ORIGINAL.
...

They hide in the brook when I seek to draw nearer,
Laughing amain when I feign to depart;
Often I hear them, now faint and now clearer
Innocent bold or so sweetly discreet....

"Buy,--who'll buy?" In the market-place,
Out of the market din and clatter,
The quack with his puckered persuasive face
Patters away in the ancient patter.

"Buy,--who'll buy? In this flask I hold--...

Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter.
The child that she wet-nursed is lapp'd in the wave;
The Mussulman, coming to fish in this water,
Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.
...

An abandoned house -
dark salved to eclectic;
crinkly, black pigment of old pine boards
disparate to the elements.

The waters of the bay lie beneath.
A long slope trailing back of brush,...

See! the milk-white doe is wounded.
He will follow as it bounds
Through the woods. His horn has sounded.
Echoing, for his men and hounds.
But no answering bugle blew.
He has lost his retinue...

I saw it in the days gone by,
When the dead girl lay at rest,
And the wattle and the native rose
We placed upon her breast.

I saw it in the long ago
(And I've seen strong men die),...

Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled
Thy plough to ring this solitary tree
With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,
In cool green radius twice my length may be -...

[1]

From bowers of gods the bees came down to man.
On Mount Hymettus,[2] first, they say,
They made their home, and stored away
The treasures which the zephyrs fan....

However certain of the way thou art,
Take not the self-appointed leader's part.
Follow no man, and by no man be led,
And no man lead. AWAKE, and go ahead.
Thy path, though leading straight unto the goal...

When I a ship see on the seas,
Cuff'd with those wat'ry savages,
And therewithal behold it hath
In all that way no beaten path,
Then, with a wonder, I confess
Thou art our way i' th' wilderness;...

Love entered in my heart one day,
A sad, unwelcome guest;
But when he begged that he might stay,
I let him wait and rest.
He broke my sleep with sorrowing,
And shook my dreams with tears,...

Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place
Made fair by one another for a while.
Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;
The long road then, unlit by your faint smile....

The way her silky garments undulate
It seems she's dancing as she walks along,
Like serpents that the sacred charmers make
To move in rhythms of their waving wands.
...

The way I read a letter's this:
'T is first I lock the door,
And push it with my fingers next,
For transport it be sure.

And then I go the furthest off
To counteract a knock;...

The wind's way in the deep sky's hollow
None may measure, as none can say
How the heart in her shows the swallow
The wind's way.

Hope nor fear can avail to stay...

When fairer faces turn from me,
And gayer friends grow cold,
And I have lost through poverty
The friendship bought with gold;
When I have served the selfish turn
Of some all-worldly few,...

Since Adam's first sin in the garden of song,
Where the hopes of the race were empearled,
Whenever a mortal does anything wrong,
It is only the way of the world!
...