Sunken Gold

IN dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships;

  And gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell,

  Lie nestled in the ocean-flower's bell

With love's old gifts, once kissed by long-drowned lips.

And round some wrought gold cup the sea-grass whips,

  And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell,

  Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell

And seek dim twilight with their restless tips.

So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes,

  Beneath the now hushed surface of myself,

In lonelier depths than where the diver gropes;

They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold

  In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf,

The gleam of irrecoverable gold.

Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Noon's Dream-Song

THE day is long; the worn Noon dreams.

He shifts in vain, to ease his pain,

And through what seems, he hears a song:

A forest song, whose high note seems

To tell of pain, endured in vain,

And fills his dreams with things lost long.

A dead love seems to thrill that song;

Hope nursed in vain, years passed in pain,

Leaves fallen long, a tide that dreams.

Then, as he dreams, the shades grow long;

And, in his pain, he moans in vain,

While fades the song of what but seems.

Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Among the Firs

AND what a charm is in the rich hot scent

  Of old fir forests heated by the sun,

  Where drops of resin down the rough bark run,

And needle litter breathes its wonderment.

The old fir forest heated by the sun,

  Their thought shall linger like the lingering scent,

  Their beauty haunt us, and a wonderment

Of moss, of fern, of cones, of rills that run.

The needle litter breathes a wonderment;

  The crimson crans* are sparkling in the sun;          [craanberries]

  From tree to tree the scampering squirrels run;

The hum of insects blends with heat and scent.

The drops of resin down the rough bark run;

  And riper, ever riper, grows the scent;

  But eve has come, to end the wonderment,

And slowly up the tree trunk climbs the sun.

Eugene Lee-Hamilton