What demon then has worked in me
To tease my brain to bitterness--
In me who have loved bird and tree
So long, so long?

Until I come to charity,
Until I find peace again,
My curse upon the fiend or god
That will not let me hear
A bird in song upon the bough
But, hovering about the notes,
There chimes the maniac beating
Of black-winged fear.



SPECTRAL

What will the years tell?
Hush! If it would but speak--
That shadow athwart the stream,
In the gloom of a dream;

Could my brain but spell
The thought in the brain of that weak
Old ghost that hides in the gloom,
Over there, of the chestnut bloom.

I sit in the broad June light
On the open bank of the river,