Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/658

 642 MARY R. WHITTLESEY. [1850-60. Teach those lips no more to curl, And yet, not thus, I know, would they em- Or they'll leave you, saucy girl, brace me, Your bright eyes, and red lips juicy, If in the spirit they should come to- For some humble, blue-eyed Lucy — night. Juliette. After these long, long years, once more to face me, Yet I love you, as you are, With brows all radiant with celestial Bright and sparkling, like a star. light. "With those shy, proud ways, concealing Worlds of deep and tender feeling. Come, friend, whose pure and high, yet Juliette. loving spirit. Once called these hill-sides home, and me thy friend. Come near me as of old — I should not fear it — NOT YET. I know thy tenderness could never end. I SEE the mists slow-rising from the river And he, so early called from earth to meet meadows, thee. The ghostly mists that soon will wrap He with folded arms, and lofty mien. me round ; Whose soul was hidden from us ; come and I hear the moths flit through the twilight greet me. shadows My childhood's friends, so long unheard, Of yonder room — a ghostly, haunting unseen! sound. I feel the mists close round me creeping. And this is all — no echo of the voices creeping ; That talked with mine in twilights long I hear the moths flit in yon darkened gone by ; room ; No shadowy gleams from well-remembered But this is all, though spirits may be faces keeping Turned upwai-d to the starry evening Their solemn trysting 'mid the gathering sky. gloom. Come, mists, slow-rising from yon sleeping Not yet, not yet may we three meet, tho' river, meadow. Close wrap me in your cold and pallid And sloping hill-side, where the wild arms ! flowers blow, They are not colder than the bosoms stilled And orchard dark all day with slumbering forever, shadow, Not paler than those still and shrouded Still with their haunting presence over- forms. flow.