| The bay gleams softly in the sun, The morning widens o’er the world: The bluebird’s song is just begun, And down the skies white clouds are furled. |
| The boat lies idly by the shore, The shed I built with happy care Is fallen; and I see no more The white tents in the eager air. |
| The goldenrod holds up its plumes In the long stretch of meadow grass, The briarrose shakes its sweet perfumes, In coverts where the sparrows pass. |
| Far off, above, the sapphire gleams, Far off, below, the sapphire flows, And this, my place of morning dreams, The bank where my vain visions rose! |
| Sweet Alice, he came back again, Across the waste of summer sea, What time the fields were full of grain, But not to thee; but not to thee. |
| She comes no more when evening falls, To watch the stars wheel up the sky; Then love and light were over all; Alas! that light and love should die. |
| I feel her hand upon my arm, I see her eyes shine through the mist; Her life was passionate and warm As the red jewels at her wrist. |
| Hearts do not break, the world has said, Though love lie stark and light be flown; But still it counts its lost and dead, And in the solitudes makes moan. |
| We school our lips to make our hearts Seem other than in truth they are; Before the lights we play our part, And paint the flesh to hide the scar. |
| Masquers and mummers all, and yet The slaves of some dead passion’s fires, Of hopes the soul can ne’er forget Still sobbing in life’s trembling wires. |
| Fate puts our dear desires in pawn, Youth passes, unredeemed they lie; The leaves drop from our rose of dawn, And storms fall from the mocking sky. |
| I shall come back no more; my ship Waits for me by the sundering sea; A prayer for her is on my lip— And the old life is dead to me. |