Ulysses' chances re-create? The tremulous leaves repeat to me No gloomier Orcus swallows thee SHE CAME AND WENT. As a twig trembles, which a bird Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, So is my memory thrilled and stirred ;— I only know she came and went. As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, The blue dome's measureless content, So my soul held that moment's heaven;I only know she came and went. As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps An angel stood and met my gaze, O, when the room grows slowly dim, THE CHANGELING. I HAD a little daughter, And she was given to me To lead me gently backward To the Heavenly Father's knee, That I, by the force of nature, Might in some dim wise divine I know not how others saw her, Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; For it was as wavy and golden, And as many changes took, To what can I liken her smiling And dimpled her wholly over, Sending sun through her veins to me ! She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth, And it hardly seemed a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter away; Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari But loosed the hampering strings, And when they had opened her cage. door, My little bird used her wings. But they left in her stead a changeling, That seems like her bud in full blossom, As weak, yet as trustful also; For the whole year long I see All the wonders of faithful Nature Still worked for the love of me; Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, Rain falls, suns rise and set, Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet. This child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast; |