And Fashion tenanted (where Fashion wanes)

Here in the sorrowfulsuburban lanes
When first these gables rose against the sky.

Relic of a romantic taste gone by,
This statelymonument alone remains,

Vacant, with lichened walls and window-panes
Blank as the windows of a skull. But I,

On evenings when autumnal winds have stirred
In the porch-vines, to this gray oracle

Have laid a wondering ear and oft-times heard,
As from the hollow of a stranded shell,

Old voices echoing (or my fancy erred)
Things indistinct, but not insensible.

Oneata
A hilltop sought by every soothing breeze

That loves the melody of murmuring boughs,
Cool shades, green acreage, and antique house

Fronting the ocean and the dawn; than these
Old monks built never for the spirit's ease

Cloisters more calm -- not Cluny nor Clairvaux;
Sweet are the noises from the bay below,

And cuckoos calling in the tulip-trees.
Here, a yet empty suitor in thy train,

Beloved Poesy, great joy was mine
To while a listless spell of summer days,

Happier than hoarder in each evening's gain,
When evenings found me richer by one line,

One verse well turned, or serviceable phrase.
On the Cliffs, Newport

Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o'er
Smooth lovely Ocean. Through the lustrous gloom

A savor steals from linden trees in bloom
And gardens ranged at many a palace door.

Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour
Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line,

Terrace and lawn, trim hedge and flowering vine,
Crown with fair culture all the sounding shore.

How sweet, to such a place, on such a night,
From halls with beauty and festival a-glare,

To come distract and, stretched on the cool turf,
Yield to some fond, improbable delight,

While the moon, reddening, sinks, and all the air
Sighs with the muffled tumult of the surf!

To England at the Outbreak of the Balkan War
A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o'er.

The world takes sides: whether for impious aims
With Tyranny whose bloody toll enflames

A generous people to heroic war;
Whether with Freedom, stretched in her own gore,

Whose pleading hands and suppliant distress
Still offer hearts that thirst for Righteousness

A glorious cause to strike or perish for.
England, which side is thine? Thou hast had sons

Would shrink not from the choice however grim,
Were Justice trampled on and Courage downed;

Which will they be -- cravens or champions?
Oh, if a doubt intrude, remember him

Whose death made Missolonghi holy ground.
At the Tomb of Napoleon Before the Elections in America -- November, 1912

I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame,
Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast,

Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast
Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame.

Has Nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim
No hero now, no man with whom men side

As with their hearts' high needs personified?
There are will say, One such our lips could name;

Columbia gave him birth. Him Genius most
Gifted to rule. Against the world's great man

Lift their low calumny and sneering cries
The Pharisaic multitude, the host

Of piddling slanderers whose little eyes
Know not what greatness is and never can.

The Rendezvous
He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour.

Distant, across the thundering organ-swell,
In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower,

Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell.
Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves.

He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates --
Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he loves.

She will not come, the woman that he waits.
Braided with streams of silver incense rise

The antique prayers and ponderous antiphones.
`Gloria Patri' echoes to the skies;

`Nunc et in saecula' the choir intones.
He marks not the monotonous refrain,

The priest that serves nor him that celebrates,
But ever scans the aisle for his blonde head. . . . In vain!

She will not come, the woman that he waits.
How like a flower seemed the perfumed place

Where the sweet flesh lay loveliest to kiss;
And her white hands in what delicious ways,

With what unfeigned caresses, answered his!
Each tender charm intolerable to lose,

Each happy scene his fancy recreates.
And he calls out her name and spreads his arms . . . No use!

She will not come, the woman that he waits.
But the long vespers close. The priest on high

Raises the thing that Christ's own flesh enforms;
And down the Gothic nave the crowd flows by

And through the portal's carven entry swarms.
Maddened he peers upon each passing face

Till the long drab procession terminates.
No princess passes out with proud majestic pace.

She has not come, the woman that he waits.
Back in the empty silent church alone

He walks with aching heart. A white-robed boy
Puts out the altar-candles one by one,

Even as by inches darkens all his joy.
He dreams of the sweet night their lips first met,

And groans -- and turns to leave -- and hesitates . . .
Poor stricken heart, he will, he can not fancy yet

She will not come, the woman that he waits.
But in an arch where deepest shadows fall

He sits and studies the old, storied panes,
And the calm crucifix that from the wall

Looks on a world that quavers and complains.
Hopeless, abandoned, desolate, aghast,

On modes of violent death he meditates.
And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last,

She will not come, the woman that he waits.
Through the stained rose the winter daylight dies,

And all the tide of anguish unrepressed
Swells in his throat and gathers in his eyes;

He kneels and bows his head upon his breast,
And feigns a prayer to hide his burning tears,

While the satanic voice reiterates