THE RUINED GATE
The sunshine and the shadow lengthen with the dying day,
And, like a dream, the daylight vanishes from earth away.
The western sky is covered with a web of beauty spun
By fairy hands, and woven from the life-tide of the sun.
The stars come out and glow like diamonds on the robe of night,
And through the silence all the lost dreams softly take their flight.
The cares of life have vanished, and its tears have turned to dew,
And, once again, my soul is standing in love's garden-world with you.
I hear your lute-like laughter rippling, as in days of old;
Your dear lips whispering "the sweetest story ever told;"
I feel your soft hands resting in these empty hands of mine,
And dream that I am living in the days that were divine.
And then, the dream, like daylight, softly fades from earth away,
And you are gone, and gone the stars, and gone the light of day.....
The pulse of passion beats against the iron bars of fate,
And hope with drooping pinions kneels before love's ruined gate.
✤ ✤ ✤ ✤
ROSE LEAVES
You still rest here, where she placed you, long ago,
When the fields were white with blossoms and my heart was all aglow;
When the lovelight softly trembled in my sweetheart's dreamy eyes,
And the deamer's spirit loitered at the gates of Paradise.
O rose leaves! you still bind me with the dreams that held me fast,
When my sweetheart leaned above me in the gardens of the past;
And the soul of mem'ry leads me where the summer sunlight shines
And the air is heavy-laden with the fragrance of the pines.
O the days that long have vanished! O the light that died away,
When the mystic lovelight faded from her dreamy eyes for aye!
O the fading of the roses! O the ages that have flown,
And the sorrow and the shadow that the dreamer's heart has known!
—29—
