What is to thee the throstle's song,

Who sings of love, but not of mine? Oh, turn from the Tyrrhenian Sea ! Come back to me! Come back to me!

THE FLIGHT FROM THE

CONVENT

I SEE the star-lights quiver,
Like jewels in the river;
The bank is hid with sedge;
What if I slip the edge?

I thought I knew the way
By night as well as day:
But how a lover goes astray!

The place is somewhat lonely —
I mean for just one only;
I brought the boat ashore
An hour ago or more.

Well, I will sit and wait;
She fixed the hour at eight:
Good angels! bring her not too late!

To-morrow's tongues that name her
Will hardly dare to blame her:
A lily still is white

Through all the dark of night:

The morning sun shall show
A bride as pure as snow,

Whose wedding all the world shall know.

O God! that I should gain her!
But what can so detain her?
Hist, yelping cur! thy bark
Will fright her in the dark.

She brought it in her tiny hand
To see if I would understand,
And wondered when I made reply,
"You've found a baby butterfly."
"A butterfly is not like this,"
With doubtful look she answered me.
So then I told her what would be
Some day within the chrysalis;
How, slowly, in the dull brown thing
Now still as death, a spotted wing,
And then another, would unfold,
Till from the empty shell would fly
A pretty creature, by and by,
AlÎ radiant in blue and gold.

“And will it, truly ?" questioned she Her laughing lips and eager eyes All in a sparkle of surprise "And shall your little Mädchen see?" "She shall!" I said. How could I tell That ere the worm within its shell Its gauzy, splendid wings had spread, My little Mädchen would be dead?

To-day the butterfly has flown, -
She was not here to see it fly,
And sorrowing I wonder why
The empty shell is mine alone.
Perhaps the secret lies in this:
I too had found a chrysalis,

And Death that robbed me of delight
Was but the radiant creature's flight!

IN DEATH

How still the room is! But a while ago
The sound of sobbing voices vexed my ears,
And on my face there fell a rain of tears
I scarce knew why or whence, but now I
know.

The poet followed long;

THE DEAD SOLOMON

KING SOLOMON stood in the house of the

Lord,

And the Genii silently wrought around,

wooing,

And soul-betraying song.

And still the fervor of his fond endeavor
To him seemed poured in vain,
And all in vain, forever and forever,
The sorrow of his strain.

But when at last he perished brokenhearted,

The world, grown dark and dull, Bewailed the radiance with him departed Who was the Beautiful.

Building the temple without a sound.