Fairer than sight of a city all white from the mountain-top viewed in
the vales,
Or the silver-bright flakes of the moonlight in lakes, when the moon
rides the clouds and the forest awakes,
You are to me!

For you are to me what the bowstring is to the shaft,
Speeding my purpose aloft and aflame and afar,
Through the thick of the fight, in your eyes' steady light my soul
hath seen splendor, and laughed.
Now, however I tend betwixt foeman and friend through the riddle of
Life to Death's light at the end,
I ride for your star!


THE SHADOWED ROAD

Our shadows moved before us on the road.
The trees that watched us brooded dark and still,
Streaked by the frost with phosphorescent gray.
Chill followed sharply on a gorgeous day
Of winds, blown leaves, red bonfires. Faintly showed
The mist-ringed moon above the pasture hill.

Our shadows moved before us. By our side
New mystery, throbbing through the rhythm of life
Echoed our footsteps; and its presence grew
So real to me, I felt its power endue
An archangelic shape, whose phantom stride
Rhymed with our own who walked as man and wife.