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A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
"Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

"I loved, - and, blind with passionate love, I fell....

Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls,
Long in one place she will not stay;
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.

But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes...

God send me tears!
Loose the fierce band that binds my tired brain,
Give me the melting heart of other years,
And let me weep again!

Before me pass
The shapes of things inexorably true....

When I behold thee, O my indolent love,
To the sound of ringing brazen melodies,
Through garish halls harmoniously move,
Scattering a scornful light from languid eyes;
...

How well my heart remembers
Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away, -
The joy that was November's.

Her voice to laughter moving,
So merrily reproving, -...

What man is there so bold that he should say,
"Thus, and thus only, would I have the sea"?
For whether lying calm and beautiful,
Clasping the earth in love, and throwing back...

I don't go much on religion,
I never ain't had no show;
But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,
On the handful o' things I know.
I don't pan out on the prophets
And free-will, and that sort of thing, -...

'Tis love that blinds my heart and eyes, -
I sometimes say in doubting dreams, -
The face that near me perfect seems
Cold Memory paints in fainter dyes.

'Twas but love's dazzled eyes - I say -...

If Heaven would hear my prayer,
My dearest wish would be,
Thy sorrows not to share,
But take them all on me;
If Heaven would hear my prayer.

I'd beg with prayers and sighs...

I stood on the top of Pitz Languard,
And heard three voices whispering low,
Where the Alpine birds in their circling ward
Made swift dark shadows upon the snow.

First Voice.
...

She lived shut in by flowers and trees
And shade of gentle bigotries.
On this side lay the trackless sea,
On that the great world's mystery;
But all unseen and all unguessed...

(Paris, August, 1865.)


I stand at the break of day
In the Champs Elys'es.
The tremulous shafts of dawning
As they shoot o'er the Tuileries early,
Strike Luxor's cold gray spire,...

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
...

The song of Kilvani: fairest she
In all the land of Savatthi.
She had one child, as sweet and gay
And dear to her as the light of day.
She was so young, and he so fair,...

Each shining light above us
Has its own peculiar grace;
But every light of heaven
Is in my darling's face.

For it is like the sunlight,
So strong and pure and warm,...

Through the long days and years
What will my loved one be,
Parted from me?
Through the long days and years.

Always as then she was,
Loveliest, brightest, best,
Blessing and blest, -...

Had we but met in other days,
Had we but loved in other ways,
Another light and hope had shone
On your life and my own.

In sweet but hopeless reveries
I fancy how your wistful eyes...