Six songs for voice and piano, poetry by Alexander Posey (1873-1908)

Thy waxen blooms of yesterday
Today all wither and decay.
But, oh, so sweet a life is thine!
Never knowing ill words spoken,
Sorrow of a heart that's broken,
So full of days unlike to mine.

Two eyes met mine
  Of heav'n's own blue --
Forgetmenots
  Seen under dew.

My heart straightway
  Refused to woo
All other eyes
  Except those two.

Days came and went
  A whole year thro',
And still I loved
  Two eyes of blue.

But when one day
  Two eyes of brown,
In olive set
  Beneath a crown

Of browner hair,
  Met mine, behold,
The eyes beneath
  The shining gold,

Love-lit and loved
  In days of yore,
Grew dim, and were
  Sky-blue no more!

I fancy that I sit beside
  The shore of slumbers' phantom sea
And see sweet visions die, and hear
  The siren voices calling me.

Am I a shell cast on the shore
  Of Time's illimitable sea,
To hear and whisper evermore
  The music of Eternity?

I've seen the beauty of the rose,
I've heard the music of the bird,
And given voice to my delight;
I've sought the shapes that come in dreams,
I've reached my hands in eager quest,
To fold them empty to my breast;
While you, the whole of all I've sought —
The love, the beauty, and the dreams —
Have stood, thro' weal and woe, true at
My side, silent at my neglect.

I see the millet combing gold
  From summer sun,
In hussar caps, all day;
  And brown quails run
Far down the dusty way,
  Fly up and whistle from the wold;

Sweet delusions on the mountains,
  Of hounds in chase,
    Beguiling every care 
  Of life apace,
    Though only fevered air
That trembles, and dies in mounting.

I ask no more of life than sunset's gold;
  A cottage hid in songbird's neighborhood,
  Where I may sing and do a little good,
For love and pleasant memories when I'm old.

If life hath this in store for me —
  A spot where coarse souls enter not,
Or strife — I'm sure there cannot be
  On earth a fairer heaven sought.