Under the blue of the mid-May sky,
Under the shadow of beech and lime,
Watching cloud-shallops drift idly by,
Free from the thraldom of fate and time;
Lulled by the murmur of breeze and stream,
Twitter of songster, flutter of spray,
That sweetly blend with the waking dream,
And whisper one magical word alway;
Held by the spell of an exquisite face,
A voice that is dearer than all things dear,
Ah, but the world is a fairy place
In the bloom of the heart, the May of the year!
Sitting alone in the waning light,
In the dead November's leaden dearth,
Watching the mists rise ghostly white,
And blend in the shadows, and quench the earth;
Musing for aye on the might-have-been —
Sweet might-have-been that may not be! —
The tender hopes and the fancies green
That faded and fluttered from life's fair tree;
Haunted alway by a vanished face,
A voice that is hushed in the midnight drear,
Ah, but the world is a weary place
In the gloom of the heart, the gray of the year!