Robert Silliman Hillyer

How strange it is that thine ethereal grace
Should make me sorry by its loveliness,
For surely beauty is designed to bless
Those hours of youth that have so short a race,
...

How should I think of thee but with delight?
How should I greet thy face but with a smile?
And yet dark tears within my heart defile
The dreams of thee that I would have so bright.
...

Then judge me as thou wilt, I cannot flee,
I cannot turn away from thee forever,
For there are bonds that wisdom cannot sever,
And slaves with souls far freer than the free.
...

Thou only wert my hope, and thou art gone.
Thou, the one star in monotones of sky,
Art vanished like a meteor, and I,
...

The golden spring redeems the withered year,
And wherefore should my spirit be afraid
Though autumn winds wail through the smoky shade
And chill me like the fleeting ghost of fear?
...

I will fling wide the windows of my soul
Under the deep hush of nocturnal skies,
When the white legions of the stars arise
And write their secrets on the Master's scroll.
...

Even as love grows more, I write the less,
Impelled to speak, unable still to voice
The lyric thoughts like angels that rejoice
Attendant on thy godly loveliness.
...

Fly, joyous wind, through all the wakened earth,
Now when the portals of the dawn outpour
Laughter and radiant sunlight from the store
Of spring's glad passion and loud-ringing mirth.
...

Who follows Love shall walk in outland places,
Beyond the common cheer of hall and town,
He shall forget all things, the friendly faces,
The strife for wealth, the struggle for renown.
...

Let those who love hear me; I speak as one
Who hath known every portion of love's pain,
And all the swift delights that flare and wane
Between the setting and the rising sun.
...

About the headlands and the rocky shoals
I hear the breath of twilight, sighing, sighing,
And over the wail and dash of breakers, crying,
The voices of old ships and wandering souls.
...

Although the spring is hastening to pursue
The swift white deer of winter through the glades,
Sometimes they pause for breath beneath the shades;
Then blows the frozen hurricane anew.
...

We have come back to one another; yes,
After long languishing in spheres apart,
Thou hast returned, since Love's own self thou art,
And I in penitence and fearfulness.
...

Poor faltering lines, my weary soul's relief,
The balm of passion, opiate of pain.
A mightier hand than mine, a mightier brain,
Had wrought in you an immemorial grief.
...

To make my days impatient with unrest,
To filch the quiet of the dark's repose,
Seeking forever what my soul well knows
Is ever far beyond my farthest quest;—
...

Quickly and pleasantly the seasons blow
Over the meadows of eternity,
As wave on wave the pulsings of the sea
Merge and are lost, each in the other's flow.
...

Voice that art life to me, I almost hear
Thy sweet familiar cadence on the breeze,
At times a far call infinitely clear;
Face that art love to me, my spirit sees
...

To walk beside the river in the dawn
Is fair indeed when spring is in the breeze,
Bird-carollings, the mumbling hum of bees
Sing matins from the dew-bespangled lawn;
...

The insurgent sea sweeps through the barrier
Triumphant, all its foaming strength amassed
In one tempestuous tide, wallowing past
The broken banks and the worn dykes that were
...

Over the waters but a single bough
Stretches in silhouette against the moon,
The little dark waves haunt the dim lagoon
And splash against the languid-moving prow.
...