In the white-walled room Where the white bed waits Stand banks of meaningless flowers; In the rain-swept street Are a ghost-like row of cabs; And along the corridor-dusk Phantasmal feet repass. Through the warm, still air The odour of ether hangs; And on this slenderest thread Of one thin pulse Hangs and swings The hope of life-- The life of her I love!
You bid me to sleep,-- But why, O Daughter of Beauty, Was beauty thus born in the world? Since out of these shadowy eyes The wonder shall pass! And out of this surging and passionate breast The dream shall depart! And out of these delicate rivers of warmth The fire shall wither and fail! And youth like a bird from your body shall fly! And Time like a fang on your flesh shall feed! And this perilous bosom that pulses with love Shall go down to the dust from which it arose,-- Yet Daughter of Beauty, close, Close to its sumptuous warmth You hold my sorrowing head, And smile with shadowy eyes, And bid me to sleep again!
The opal afternoon Is cool, and very still. A wash of tawny air, Sea-green that melts to gold, Bathes all the skyline, hill by hill. Out of the black-topped pinelands A black crow calls, And the year seems old! A woman from a doorway sings, And from the valley-slope a sheep-dog barks, And through the umber woods the echo falls. Then silence on the still world lies, And faint and far the birds fly south, And behind the dark pines drops the sun, And a small wind wakes and sighs, And Summer, see, is done!
Alone amid the Rockies I have stood; Alone across the prairie's midnight calm Full often I have fared And faced the hushed infinity of night; Alone I have hung poised Between a quietly heaving sea And quieter sky, Aching with isolation absolute; And in Death's Valley I have walked alone And sought in vain for some appeasing sign Of life or movement, While over-desolate my heart called out For some befriending face Or some assuaging voice! But never on my soul has weighed Such loneliness as this, As here amid the seething London tides I look upon these ghosts that come and go, These swarming restless souls innumerable, Who through their million-footed dirge of unconcern Must know and nurse the thought of kindred ghosts As lonely as themselves, Or else go mad with it!