6 Songs , opus 12

Once at the Angelus
(Ere I was dead),
Angels all glorious
Came to my Bed; --
Angels in blue and white
Crowned on the Head.

One was the Friend I left
Stark in the Snow;
One was the Wife that died
Long, -- long ago;
One was the Love I lost . . .
How could she know?

One had my Mother's eyes,
Wistful and mild;
One had my Father's face;
One was a Child:
All of them bent to me, --
Bent down and smiled!

I think on thee in the night,
  When all beside is still,
And the moon comes out, with her pale, sad light,
  To sit on the lonely hill;
When the stars are all like dreams,
  And the breezes all like sighs,
And there comes a voice from the far-off streams
  Like thy spirit's low replies.
 
I think on thee by day,
  'Mid the cold and busy crowd,
When the laughter of the young and gay
  Is far too glad and loud.
I hear thy soft, sad tone,
  And thy young, sweet smile I see:
My heart -- my heart were all alone,
  But for its dreams of thee!
 
Of thee who wert so dear, -- 
  And yet I do not weep,
For thine eyes were stain'd by many a tear
  Before they went to sleep;
And, if I haunt the past,
  Yet may I not repine
That thou hast won thy rest, at last,
  And all the grief is mine.
 
I think upon thy gain,
  Whate'er to me it cost,
And fancy dwells with less of pain
  On all that I have lost, -- 
Hope, like the cuckoo's oft-told tale,
  Alas, it wears her wing!
And love that, like the nightingale,
  Sings only in the spring.
 
Thou art my spirit's all,
  Just as thou wert in youth,
Still from thy grave no shadows fall
  Upon my lonely truth;
A taper yet above thy tomb,
  Since lost its sweeter rays,
And what is memory, through the gloom,
  Was hope, in brighter days.
 
I am pining for the home
  Where sorrow sinks to sleep,
Where the weary and the weepers come,
  And they cease to toil and weep.
Why walk about with smiles
  That each should be a tear,
Vain as the summer's glowing spoils
  Flung o'er an early bier?
 
Oh, like those fairy things,
  Those insects of the East,
That have their beauty in their wings,
  And shroud it while at rest;
That fold their colors of the sky
  When earthward they alight,
And flash their splendors on the eye,
  Only to take their flight; -- 
 
I never knew how dear thou wert,
  Till thou wert borne away!
I have it yet about my heart,
  The beauty of that day!
As if the robe thou wert to wear,
  Beyond the stars, were given
That I might learn to know it there,
  And seek thee out, in heaven!

With lash on cheek, she comes and goes;
I watch her when she little knows:
I wonder if she dreams of it.
Sitting and working at my rhymes,
I weave into my verse at times
Her sunny hair, or gleams of it.

Upon her window-ledge is set
A box of flowering mignonette;
Morning and eve she tends to them --
The senseless flowers, that do not care
About that loosened strand of hair,
As prettily she bends to them.

If I could once contrive to get
Into that box of mignonette
Some morning when she tends to them --
She comes! I see the rich blood rise
From throat to cheek! -- down go the eyes,
Demurely, as she bends to them!