And we to see the race, from first to last,
And how they lived and died:--

Still would it baffle and perplex the brain.
But show this bitter truth:
Man lives not in the past:
None but a woman ever comes again
Back to the House of Youth!




THE HOUSE BY THE SEA.


To-night I do the bidding of a ghost,
A ghost that knows my misery;
In the lone dark I hear his wailing boast,
"Now shalt thou speak with me."

Must I go back where all is desolate,
Where reigns the terror of a curse,
To knock, a beggar, at my father's gate,
That closed upon a hearse?

The old stone pier has crumbled in the sea;
The tide flows through the garden wall;
Where grew the lily, and where hummed the bee,
Black seaweeds rise and fall.