New Poems

Hangs in the air
And lights on a withered oak-tree's top of woe.

One bird, one blot, folded and still at the top

Of the withered tree!--in the grail
Of crystal heaven falls one full black drop.

Like a soft full drop of darkness it seems to sway

In the tender wine
Of our Sabbath, suffusing our sacred day.

PIANO

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the

tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who

smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter

outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano

our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the g