It was the evening of the second day,
Which swifter, sweeter than the first had fled:
My heart's delicious tumult passed away
And left a sober happiness instead.
For Ernest's voice was ever in mine ear,
His presence mingled as of old with mine,
But stronger, manlier, brighter, more divine
Its effluence now: within his starry sphere
Of love new-risen my nature too was drawn,
And warmed with rosy flushes of the dawn.
All day we drove about the lovely vales,
Under the hill-side farms, through summer woods,
The land of mingled homes and solitudes
That Ernest loved. We told the dear old tales
Of childhood, music new to Edith's ear,
Sang olden songs, lived old adventures o'er,
And, when the hours brought need of other cheer,
Spread on the ferny rocks a tempting store
Of country dainties. 'T was our favorite dell,
Cut by the trout-stream through a wooded ridge:
Above, the highway on a mossy bridge
Strode o'er it, and below, the water fell
Through hornblende bowlders, where the dircus flung
His pliant rods, the berried spice-wood grew,
And tulip-trees and smooth magnolias hung
A million leaves between us and the blue.
The silver water-dust in puffs arose.
And turned to dust of jewels in the sun,
And like a cañon, in its close begun
Afresh, the stream's perpetual lullaby
Sang down the dell, and deepened its repose.
Here, till the western hours had left the sky,
We sat: then homeward loitered through the dusk
Of chestnut woods, along the meadow-side,
And lost in lanes that breathed ambrosial musk
Of wild-grape blossoms: and the twilight died.
Long after every star came out, we paced
The terrace, still discoursing on the themes
The day had started, intermixed with dreams
Born of the summer night. Then, golden-faced,
Behind her daybreak of auroral gleams,
The moon arose: the bosom of the lawn
Whitened beneath her silent snow of light,
Save where the trees made isles of mystic night,
Dark blots against the rising splendor drawn,
And where the eastern wall of woodland towered,
Blue darkness, filled with undistinguished shapes:
But elsewhere, over all the landscape showered—
A silver drizzle on the distant capes
Of hills—the glory of the moon. We sought,
Drawn thither by the same unspoken thought,
The mound, where now the leaves of laurel clashed
Their dagger-points of light, around the bower.
And through the nets of leaf and elfin flower,
Cold fire, the sprinkled drops of moonshine flashed.
Erelong in Ernest's hand the volume lay,
(I did not need a second time to ask,)
And he resumed the intermitted task.
“This night, dear Philip, is the Poet's day,”
He said: “the world is one confessional:
Our sacred memories as freely fall
As leaves from o'er-ripe blossoms: we betray
Ourselves to Nature, who the tale can win
We shrink from uttering in the daylight's din.
So, Friend, come back with me a little way
Along the years, and in these records find.
The sole inscriptions they have left behind.”
Atonement
I F thou hadst died at midnight,
With a lamp beside thy bed;
The beauty of sleep exchanging
For the beauty of the dead:
When the bird of heaven had called thee,
And the time had come to go,
And the northern lights were dancing
On the dim December snow,—
If thou hadst died at midnight,
I had ceased to bid thee stay,
Hearing the feet of the Father
Leading His child away.
I had knelt, in the awful Presence,
And covered my guilty head,
And received His absolution
For my sins toward the dead.
But the cruel sun was shining
In the cold and windy sky,
And Life, with his mocking voices,
Looked in to see thee die.
God came and went unheeded;
No tear repentant shone;
And he took the heart from my bosom,
And left in its place a stone.
Each trivial promise broken,
Each tender word unsaid,
Must be evermore unspoken,—
Unpardoned by the dead.
Unpardoned? No: the struggle
Of years was not in vain,—
The patience that wearies passion,
And the prayers that conquer pain.
This tardy resignation
May be the blessed sign
Of pardon and atonement,
Thy spirit sends to mine.
Now first I dare remember
That day of death and woe:
Within, the dreadful silence,
Without, the sun and snow!
December
The beech is bare, and bare the ash,
The thickets white below;
The fir-tree scowls with hoar moustache,
He cannot sing for snow.
The body-guard of veteran pines,
A grim battalion, stands;
They ground their arms, in ordered lines,
For Winter so commands.
The waves are dumb along the shore,
The river's pulse is still:
The north-wind's bugle blows no more
Reveillé from the hill.
The rustling sift of falling snow,
The muffled crush of leaves.
These are the sounds suppressed, that show
How much the forest grieves;
But, as the blind and vacant Day
Crawls to his ashy bed,
I hear dull echoes far away,
Like drums above the dead.
Sigh with me, Pine that never changed!
Thou wear'st the Summer's hue;
Her other loves are all estranged,
But thou and I are true!
Sylvan Spirits
The gray stems rise, the branches braid
A covering of deepest shade.
Beneath these old, inviolate trees
There comes no stealthy, sliding breeze,
To overhear their mysteries.
Steeped in the fragrant breath of leaves,
My heart a hermit peace receives:
The sombre forest thrusts a screen
My refuge and the world between,
And beds me in its balmy green.
No fret of life may here intrude,
To vex the sylvan solitude.
Pure spirits of the earth and air,
From hollow trunk and bosky lair
Come forth, and hear your lover's prayer!
Come, Druid soul of ancient oak,
Thou, too, hast felt the thunder-stroke;
Come, Hamadryad of the beech,
Nymph of the burning maple, teach
My heart the solace of your speech!
Alas! the sylvan ghosts preserve
The natures of the race they serve.
Not only Dryads, chaste and shy,
But piping Fauns, come dancing nigh,
And Satyrs of the shaggy thigh.
Across the calm, the holy hush,
And shadowed air, there darts a flush
Of riot, from the lawless brood,
And rebel voices in my blood
Salute these orgies of the wood.
Not sacred thoughts alone engage
The saint in silenThermitage:
The soul within him heavenward strives,
Yet strong, as in profaner lives,
The giant of the flesh survives.
From Nature, as from human haunts,
That giant draws his sustenance,
By her own elves, in woodlands wild
She sees her robes of prayer defiled:
She is not purer than her child.
The Lost May
W HEN May, with cowslip-braided locks,
Walks through the land in green attire,
And burns in meadow-grass the phlox
His torch of purple fire:
When buds have burst the silver sheath,
And shifting pink, and gray, and gold
Steal o'er the woods, while fair beneath
The bloomy vales unfold:
When, emerald-bright, the hemlock stands
New-feathered, needled new the pine;
And, exiles from the orient lands,
The turbaned tulips shine:
When wild azaleas deck the knoll,
And cinque-foil stars the fields of home,
And winds, that take the white-weed, roll
The meadows into foam:
Then from the Jubilee I turn
To other Mays that I have seen,
Where more resplendent blossoms burn,
And statelier woods are green;—
Mays, when my heart expanded first,
A honeyed blossom, fresh with dew;
And one sweet wind of heaven dispersed
The only clouds I knew.
For she, whose softly-murmured name
The music of the month expressed,
Walked by my side, in holy shame
Of girlish love confessed.
The budding chestnuts overhead,
Their sprinkled shadows in the lane,—
Blue flowers along the brooklet's bed,—
I see them all again!
The old, old tale of girl and boy,
Repeated ever, never old:
To each in turn the gates of joy,
The gates of heaven unfold.
And when the punctual May arrives,
With cowslip-garland on her brow,
We know what once she gave our lives
And cannot give us now.
Churchyard Roses
The woodlands wore a gloomy green,
The tawny stubble clad the hill,
And August hung her smoky screen
Above the valleys, hot and still.
No life was in the fields that day:
My steps were safe from curious eyes:
I wandered where, in churchyard clay,
The dust of love and beauty lies.
Around me thrust the nameless graves
Their fatal ridges, side by side,
So green, they seemed but grassy waves,
Yet quiet as the dead they hide.
And o'er each pillow of repose
Some innocent memento grew,
Of pansy, pink, or lowly rose,
Or hyssop, lavender, and rue.
What flower is hers, the maiden bride?
What sacred plant protects her bed?
I saw, the greenest mound beside,
A rose of dark and lurid red.
An eye of fierce demoniac stain,
It mocked my calm and chastened grief;
I tore it, stung with sudden pain,
And stamped in earth each bloody leaf.
And down upon that trampled grave
In recklessness my body cast:
“Give back the life I could not save,
Or give deliverance from the Past!”
But something gently touched my cheek,
Caressing while its touch reproved:
A rose, all white and snowy-meek,
It grew upon the dust I loved!
A breeze the holy blossom pressed
Upon my lips: Dear Saint, I cried,
Still blooms the white rose, in my breast,
Of Love, that Death has sanctified!
Autumnal Dreams
I
W HEN the maple turns to crimson
And the sassafras to gold;
When the gentian's in the meadow,
And the aster on the wold;
When the noon is lapped in vapor,
And the night is frosty-cold:
II
When the chestnut-burs are opened,
And the acorns drop like hail,
And the drowsy air is startled
With the thumping of the flail,—
With the drumming of the partridge
And the whistle of the quail:
III
Through the rustling woods I wander,
Through the jewels of the year,
From the yellow uplands calling,
Seeking her that still is dear:
She is near me in the autumn,
She, the beautiful, is near.
IV
Through the smoke of burning summer,
When the weary winds are still,
I can see her in the valley,
I can hear her on the hill,—
In the splendor of the woodlands,
In the whisper of the rill.
V
For the shores of Earth and Heaven
Meet, and mingle in the blue:
She can wander down the glory
To the places that she knew,
Where the happy lovers wandered
In the days when life was true.
VI
So I think, when days are sweetest,
And the world is wholly fair,
She may sometime steal upon me
Through the dimness of the air,
With the cross upon her bosom
And the amaranth in her hair.
VII
Once to meeTher, ah! to meeTher,
And to hold her gently fast
Till I blessed her, till she blessed me,—
That were happiness, at last:
That were bliss beyond our meetings
In the autumns of the Past!
In Winter
The valley stream is frozen,
The hills are cold and bare,
And the wild white bees of winter
Swarm in the darkened air.
I look on the naked forest:
Was it ever green in June?
Did it burn with gold and crimson
In the dim autumnal noon?
I look on the barren meadow:
Was it ever heaped with hay?
Did it hide the grassy cottage
Where the skylark's children lay?
I look on the desolate garden:
Is it true the rose was there?
And the woodbine's musky blossoms,
And the hyacinth's purple hair?
I look on my heart, and marvel
If Love were ever its own,—
If the spring of promise brightened,
And the summer of passion shone?
Is the stem of bliss but withered,
And the root survives the blast?
Are the seeds of the Future sleeping
Under the leaves of the Past?
Ah, yes! for a thousand Aprils
The frozen germs shall grow,
And the dews of a thousand summers
Wait in the womb of the snow!
Young Love
W E are not old, we are not cold,
Our hearts are warm and tender yet:
Our arms are eager to enfold
More bounteous love than we have met.
Still many another heart lays bare
Its secret chamber to our eyes,
Though dim with passion's lurid air,
Or pure as morns of Paradise.
They give the love, whose glory lifts
Desire beyond the realm of sense:
They make us rich with lavish gifts,
The wealth of noble confidence.
We must be happy, must be proud,
So crowned with human trust and truth;
But ah! the love that first we vowed,
The dear religion of our youth!
Voluptuous bloom and fragrance rare
The summer to its rose may bring;
Far sweeter to the wooing air
The hidden violet of the spring.
Still, still that lovely ghost appears,
Too fair, too pure, to bid depart;
No riper love of later years
Can steal its beauty from the heart.
O splendid sun that shone above!
O green magnificence of Earth!
Born once into that land of love,
No life can know a second birth.
Dear, boyish heart, that trembled so
With bashful fear and fond unrest,—
More frightened than a dove, to know
Another bird within its nest!
Sharp thrills of doubt, wild hopes that came,
Fond words addressed.—each word a pang:
Then—hearts, baptized in heavenly flame,
How like the morning stars ye sang!
Love bound ye with his holiest link,
The faith in each that ask no more,
And led ye from the sacred brink
Of mysteries he held in store.
Love led ye, children, from the bowers
Where Strength and Beauty find his crown:
Ye were not ripe for mortal flowers;
God's angel brought an amaranth down.
Our eyes are dim with fruitless tears,
Our eyes are dim, our hearts are sore:
That lost religion of our years
Comes never, never, nevermore!
The Chapel
L IKE one who leaves the trampled street
For some cathedral, cool and dim,
Where he can hear in music beat
The heart of prayer, that beats for him;
And sees the common light of day,
Through painted panes, transfigured, shine,
And casts his human woes away,
In presence of the Woe Divine:
So I, from life's tormenting themes,
Turn where the silent chapel lies,
Whose windows burn with vanished dreams,
Whose altar-lights are memories.
There, watched by pitying cherubim,
In sacred hush, I rest awhile,
Till solemn sounds of harp and hymn
Begin to sweep the haunted aisle:
A hymn that once but breathed complaint,
And breathes but resignation now,
Since God has heard the pleading saint,
And laid His hand upon my brow.
Restored and comforted, I go
To grapple with my tasks again;
Through silent worship taught to know
The blessed peace that follows pain.
If Love Should Come Again
I F Love should come again, I ask my heart
In tender tremors, not unmixed with pain,
Couldst thou be calm, nor feel thine ancient smart,
If Love should come again?
Couldst thou unbar the chambers where his nest
So long was made, and made, alas, in vain,
Nor with embarrassed welcome chill thy guest,
If Love should come again?
Would Love his ruined quarters recognize,
Where shrouded pictures of the Past remain,
And gently turn them with forgiving eyes,
If Love should come again?
Would bliss, in milder type, spring up anew,
As silent craters with the scarlet stain
Of flowers repeat the lava's ancient hue,
If Love should come again?
Would Fate, relenting, sheathe the cruel blade
Whereby the angel of thy youth was slain
That thou might'st all possess him, unafraid,
If Love should come again?
In vain I ask: my heart makes no reply,
But echoes evermore the sweet refrain;
Till, trembling lest it seem a wish, I sigh:
If Love should come again.
“The darkness and the twilight have an end,”
Said Ernest, as he laid the book aside,
And, with a tenderness he could not hide,
Smiled, seeing in the eyes of wife and friend
The same soft dew that made his own so dim.
My heart was strangely moved, but not for him.
The holy night, the stars that twinkled faint,
Serfs of the regnant moon, the slumbering trees
And silvery hills, recalled fair memories
Of her I knew, his life's translated saint,
Who seemed too sacred now, too far removed,
To be by him lamented or beloved.
And yet she stood, I knew, by Ernest's side
Invisible, a glory in the heart,
A light of peace, the inner counterpart
Of that which round us poured its radiant tide.
We sat in silence, till a wind, astray
From some uneasy planet, shook the vines
And sprinkled us with snow of eglantines.
The laurels rustled as it passed away,
And, million-tongued, the woodland whisper crept
Of leaves that turned in sleep, from tree to tree
All down the lawn, and once again they slept.
Then Edith from her tender fantasy
Awoke, yet still her pensive posture kept,
Her white hands motionless upon her kuee,
Her eyes upon a star that sparkled through
The mesh of leaves, and hummed a wandering air,
(As if the music of her thoughts it were,)
Low, sweet, and sad, until to words it grew
That made it sweeter,—words that Ernest knew:
Love, I follow, follow thee ,
Wipe thine eyes and thou shalt see:
Sorrow makes thee blind to me.
I am with thee, blessing, blest;
Let thy doubts be laid to rest:
Rise, and take me to thy breast!
In thy bliss my steps behold:
Stretch thine arms and bliss enfold:
'Tis thy sorrow makes me cold.
Life is good, and life is fair ,
Love awaits thee everywhere:
Love! is Love's immortal prayer.
Live for love, and thou shalt be ,
Loving others, true to me:
Love, I follow, follow thee!
Thus Edith sang: the stars heard, and the night,
The happy spirits, leaning from the wall
Of Heaven, the saints, and God above them all,
Heard what she sang. She ceased: her brow was bright
With other splendor than the moon's: she rose,
Gave each a hand, and silently we trod
The dry, white gravel and the dewy sod,
And silently we parted for repose.
Which swifter, sweeter than the first had fled:
My heart's delicious tumult passed away
And left a sober happiness instead.
For Ernest's voice was ever in mine ear,
His presence mingled as of old with mine,
But stronger, manlier, brighter, more divine
Its effluence now: within his starry sphere
Of love new-risen my nature too was drawn,
And warmed with rosy flushes of the dawn.
All day we drove about the lovely vales,
Under the hill-side farms, through summer woods,
The land of mingled homes and solitudes
That Ernest loved. We told the dear old tales
Of childhood, music new to Edith's ear,
Sang olden songs, lived old adventures o'er,
And, when the hours brought need of other cheer,
Spread on the ferny rocks a tempting store
Of country dainties. 'T was our favorite dell,
Cut by the trout-stream through a wooded ridge:
Above, the highway on a mossy bridge
Strode o'er it, and below, the water fell
Through hornblende bowlders, where the dircus flung
His pliant rods, the berried spice-wood grew,
And tulip-trees and smooth magnolias hung
A million leaves between us and the blue.
The silver water-dust in puffs arose.
And turned to dust of jewels in the sun,
And like a cañon, in its close begun
Afresh, the stream's perpetual lullaby
Sang down the dell, and deepened its repose.
Here, till the western hours had left the sky,
We sat: then homeward loitered through the dusk
Of chestnut woods, along the meadow-side,
And lost in lanes that breathed ambrosial musk
Of wild-grape blossoms: and the twilight died.
Long after every star came out, we paced
The terrace, still discoursing on the themes
The day had started, intermixed with dreams
Born of the summer night. Then, golden-faced,
Behind her daybreak of auroral gleams,
The moon arose: the bosom of the lawn
Whitened beneath her silent snow of light,
Save where the trees made isles of mystic night,
Dark blots against the rising splendor drawn,
And where the eastern wall of woodland towered,
Blue darkness, filled with undistinguished shapes:
But elsewhere, over all the landscape showered—
A silver drizzle on the distant capes
Of hills—the glory of the moon. We sought,
Drawn thither by the same unspoken thought,
The mound, where now the leaves of laurel clashed
Their dagger-points of light, around the bower.
And through the nets of leaf and elfin flower,
Cold fire, the sprinkled drops of moonshine flashed.
Erelong in Ernest's hand the volume lay,
(I did not need a second time to ask,)
And he resumed the intermitted task.
“This night, dear Philip, is the Poet's day,”
He said: “the world is one confessional:
Our sacred memories as freely fall
As leaves from o'er-ripe blossoms: we betray
Ourselves to Nature, who the tale can win
We shrink from uttering in the daylight's din.
So, Friend, come back with me a little way
Along the years, and in these records find.
The sole inscriptions they have left behind.”
Atonement
I F thou hadst died at midnight,
With a lamp beside thy bed;
The beauty of sleep exchanging
For the beauty of the dead:
When the bird of heaven had called thee,
And the time had come to go,
And the northern lights were dancing
On the dim December snow,—
If thou hadst died at midnight,
I had ceased to bid thee stay,
Hearing the feet of the Father
Leading His child away.
I had knelt, in the awful Presence,
And covered my guilty head,
And received His absolution
For my sins toward the dead.
But the cruel sun was shining
In the cold and windy sky,
And Life, with his mocking voices,
Looked in to see thee die.
God came and went unheeded;
No tear repentant shone;
And he took the heart from my bosom,
And left in its place a stone.
Each trivial promise broken,
Each tender word unsaid,
Must be evermore unspoken,—
Unpardoned by the dead.
Unpardoned? No: the struggle
Of years was not in vain,—
The patience that wearies passion,
And the prayers that conquer pain.
This tardy resignation
May be the blessed sign
Of pardon and atonement,
Thy spirit sends to mine.
Now first I dare remember
That day of death and woe:
Within, the dreadful silence,
Without, the sun and snow!
December
The beech is bare, and bare the ash,
The thickets white below;
The fir-tree scowls with hoar moustache,
He cannot sing for snow.
The body-guard of veteran pines,
A grim battalion, stands;
They ground their arms, in ordered lines,
For Winter so commands.
The waves are dumb along the shore,
The river's pulse is still:
The north-wind's bugle blows no more
Reveillé from the hill.
The rustling sift of falling snow,
The muffled crush of leaves.
These are the sounds suppressed, that show
How much the forest grieves;
But, as the blind and vacant Day
Crawls to his ashy bed,
I hear dull echoes far away,
Like drums above the dead.
Sigh with me, Pine that never changed!
Thou wear'st the Summer's hue;
Her other loves are all estranged,
But thou and I are true!
Sylvan Spirits
The gray stems rise, the branches braid
A covering of deepest shade.
Beneath these old, inviolate trees
There comes no stealthy, sliding breeze,
To overhear their mysteries.
Steeped in the fragrant breath of leaves,
My heart a hermit peace receives:
The sombre forest thrusts a screen
My refuge and the world between,
And beds me in its balmy green.
No fret of life may here intrude,
To vex the sylvan solitude.
Pure spirits of the earth and air,
From hollow trunk and bosky lair
Come forth, and hear your lover's prayer!
Come, Druid soul of ancient oak,
Thou, too, hast felt the thunder-stroke;
Come, Hamadryad of the beech,
Nymph of the burning maple, teach
My heart the solace of your speech!
Alas! the sylvan ghosts preserve
The natures of the race they serve.
Not only Dryads, chaste and shy,
But piping Fauns, come dancing nigh,
And Satyrs of the shaggy thigh.
Across the calm, the holy hush,
And shadowed air, there darts a flush
Of riot, from the lawless brood,
And rebel voices in my blood
Salute these orgies of the wood.
Not sacred thoughts alone engage
The saint in silenThermitage:
The soul within him heavenward strives,
Yet strong, as in profaner lives,
The giant of the flesh survives.
From Nature, as from human haunts,
That giant draws his sustenance,
By her own elves, in woodlands wild
She sees her robes of prayer defiled:
She is not purer than her child.
The Lost May
W HEN May, with cowslip-braided locks,
Walks through the land in green attire,
And burns in meadow-grass the phlox
His torch of purple fire:
When buds have burst the silver sheath,
And shifting pink, and gray, and gold
Steal o'er the woods, while fair beneath
The bloomy vales unfold:
When, emerald-bright, the hemlock stands
New-feathered, needled new the pine;
And, exiles from the orient lands,
The turbaned tulips shine:
When wild azaleas deck the knoll,
And cinque-foil stars the fields of home,
And winds, that take the white-weed, roll
The meadows into foam:
Then from the Jubilee I turn
To other Mays that I have seen,
Where more resplendent blossoms burn,
And statelier woods are green;—
Mays, when my heart expanded first,
A honeyed blossom, fresh with dew;
And one sweet wind of heaven dispersed
The only clouds I knew.
For she, whose softly-murmured name
The music of the month expressed,
Walked by my side, in holy shame
Of girlish love confessed.
The budding chestnuts overhead,
Their sprinkled shadows in the lane,—
Blue flowers along the brooklet's bed,—
I see them all again!
The old, old tale of girl and boy,
Repeated ever, never old:
To each in turn the gates of joy,
The gates of heaven unfold.
And when the punctual May arrives,
With cowslip-garland on her brow,
We know what once she gave our lives
And cannot give us now.
Churchyard Roses
The woodlands wore a gloomy green,
The tawny stubble clad the hill,
And August hung her smoky screen
Above the valleys, hot and still.
No life was in the fields that day:
My steps were safe from curious eyes:
I wandered where, in churchyard clay,
The dust of love and beauty lies.
Around me thrust the nameless graves
Their fatal ridges, side by side,
So green, they seemed but grassy waves,
Yet quiet as the dead they hide.
And o'er each pillow of repose
Some innocent memento grew,
Of pansy, pink, or lowly rose,
Or hyssop, lavender, and rue.
What flower is hers, the maiden bride?
What sacred plant protects her bed?
I saw, the greenest mound beside,
A rose of dark and lurid red.
An eye of fierce demoniac stain,
It mocked my calm and chastened grief;
I tore it, stung with sudden pain,
And stamped in earth each bloody leaf.
And down upon that trampled grave
In recklessness my body cast:
“Give back the life I could not save,
Or give deliverance from the Past!”
But something gently touched my cheek,
Caressing while its touch reproved:
A rose, all white and snowy-meek,
It grew upon the dust I loved!
A breeze the holy blossom pressed
Upon my lips: Dear Saint, I cried,
Still blooms the white rose, in my breast,
Of Love, that Death has sanctified!
Autumnal Dreams
I
W HEN the maple turns to crimson
And the sassafras to gold;
When the gentian's in the meadow,
And the aster on the wold;
When the noon is lapped in vapor,
And the night is frosty-cold:
II
When the chestnut-burs are opened,
And the acorns drop like hail,
And the drowsy air is startled
With the thumping of the flail,—
With the drumming of the partridge
And the whistle of the quail:
III
Through the rustling woods I wander,
Through the jewels of the year,
From the yellow uplands calling,
Seeking her that still is dear:
She is near me in the autumn,
She, the beautiful, is near.
IV
Through the smoke of burning summer,
When the weary winds are still,
I can see her in the valley,
I can hear her on the hill,—
In the splendor of the woodlands,
In the whisper of the rill.
V
For the shores of Earth and Heaven
Meet, and mingle in the blue:
She can wander down the glory
To the places that she knew,
Where the happy lovers wandered
In the days when life was true.
VI
So I think, when days are sweetest,
And the world is wholly fair,
She may sometime steal upon me
Through the dimness of the air,
With the cross upon her bosom
And the amaranth in her hair.
VII
Once to meeTher, ah! to meeTher,
And to hold her gently fast
Till I blessed her, till she blessed me,—
That were happiness, at last:
That were bliss beyond our meetings
In the autumns of the Past!
In Winter
The valley stream is frozen,
The hills are cold and bare,
And the wild white bees of winter
Swarm in the darkened air.
I look on the naked forest:
Was it ever green in June?
Did it burn with gold and crimson
In the dim autumnal noon?
I look on the barren meadow:
Was it ever heaped with hay?
Did it hide the grassy cottage
Where the skylark's children lay?
I look on the desolate garden:
Is it true the rose was there?
And the woodbine's musky blossoms,
And the hyacinth's purple hair?
I look on my heart, and marvel
If Love were ever its own,—
If the spring of promise brightened,
And the summer of passion shone?
Is the stem of bliss but withered,
And the root survives the blast?
Are the seeds of the Future sleeping
Under the leaves of the Past?
Ah, yes! for a thousand Aprils
The frozen germs shall grow,
And the dews of a thousand summers
Wait in the womb of the snow!
Young Love
W E are not old, we are not cold,
Our hearts are warm and tender yet:
Our arms are eager to enfold
More bounteous love than we have met.
Still many another heart lays bare
Its secret chamber to our eyes,
Though dim with passion's lurid air,
Or pure as morns of Paradise.
They give the love, whose glory lifts
Desire beyond the realm of sense:
They make us rich with lavish gifts,
The wealth of noble confidence.
We must be happy, must be proud,
So crowned with human trust and truth;
But ah! the love that first we vowed,
The dear religion of our youth!
Voluptuous bloom and fragrance rare
The summer to its rose may bring;
Far sweeter to the wooing air
The hidden violet of the spring.
Still, still that lovely ghost appears,
Too fair, too pure, to bid depart;
No riper love of later years
Can steal its beauty from the heart.
O splendid sun that shone above!
O green magnificence of Earth!
Born once into that land of love,
No life can know a second birth.
Dear, boyish heart, that trembled so
With bashful fear and fond unrest,—
More frightened than a dove, to know
Another bird within its nest!
Sharp thrills of doubt, wild hopes that came,
Fond words addressed.—each word a pang:
Then—hearts, baptized in heavenly flame,
How like the morning stars ye sang!
Love bound ye with his holiest link,
The faith in each that ask no more,
And led ye from the sacred brink
Of mysteries he held in store.
Love led ye, children, from the bowers
Where Strength and Beauty find his crown:
Ye were not ripe for mortal flowers;
God's angel brought an amaranth down.
Our eyes are dim with fruitless tears,
Our eyes are dim, our hearts are sore:
That lost religion of our years
Comes never, never, nevermore!
The Chapel
L IKE one who leaves the trampled street
For some cathedral, cool and dim,
Where he can hear in music beat
The heart of prayer, that beats for him;
And sees the common light of day,
Through painted panes, transfigured, shine,
And casts his human woes away,
In presence of the Woe Divine:
So I, from life's tormenting themes,
Turn where the silent chapel lies,
Whose windows burn with vanished dreams,
Whose altar-lights are memories.
There, watched by pitying cherubim,
In sacred hush, I rest awhile,
Till solemn sounds of harp and hymn
Begin to sweep the haunted aisle:
A hymn that once but breathed complaint,
And breathes but resignation now,
Since God has heard the pleading saint,
And laid His hand upon my brow.
Restored and comforted, I go
To grapple with my tasks again;
Through silent worship taught to know
The blessed peace that follows pain.
If Love Should Come Again
I F Love should come again, I ask my heart
In tender tremors, not unmixed with pain,
Couldst thou be calm, nor feel thine ancient smart,
If Love should come again?
Couldst thou unbar the chambers where his nest
So long was made, and made, alas, in vain,
Nor with embarrassed welcome chill thy guest,
If Love should come again?
Would Love his ruined quarters recognize,
Where shrouded pictures of the Past remain,
And gently turn them with forgiving eyes,
If Love should come again?
Would bliss, in milder type, spring up anew,
As silent craters with the scarlet stain
Of flowers repeat the lava's ancient hue,
If Love should come again?
Would Fate, relenting, sheathe the cruel blade
Whereby the angel of thy youth was slain
That thou might'st all possess him, unafraid,
If Love should come again?
In vain I ask: my heart makes no reply,
But echoes evermore the sweet refrain;
Till, trembling lest it seem a wish, I sigh:
If Love should come again.
“The darkness and the twilight have an end,”
Said Ernest, as he laid the book aside,
And, with a tenderness he could not hide,
Smiled, seeing in the eyes of wife and friend
The same soft dew that made his own so dim.
My heart was strangely moved, but not for him.
The holy night, the stars that twinkled faint,
Serfs of the regnant moon, the slumbering trees
And silvery hills, recalled fair memories
Of her I knew, his life's translated saint,
Who seemed too sacred now, too far removed,
To be by him lamented or beloved.
And yet she stood, I knew, by Ernest's side
Invisible, a glory in the heart,
A light of peace, the inner counterpart
Of that which round us poured its radiant tide.
We sat in silence, till a wind, astray
From some uneasy planet, shook the vines
And sprinkled us with snow of eglantines.
The laurels rustled as it passed away,
And, million-tongued, the woodland whisper crept
Of leaves that turned in sleep, from tree to tree
All down the lawn, and once again they slept.
Then Edith from her tender fantasy
Awoke, yet still her pensive posture kept,
Her white hands motionless upon her kuee,
Her eyes upon a star that sparkled through
The mesh of leaves, and hummed a wandering air,
(As if the music of her thoughts it were,)
Low, sweet, and sad, until to words it grew
That made it sweeter,—words that Ernest knew:
Love, I follow, follow thee ,
Wipe thine eyes and thou shalt see:
Sorrow makes thee blind to me.
I am with thee, blessing, blest;
Let thy doubts be laid to rest:
Rise, and take me to thy breast!
In thy bliss my steps behold:
Stretch thine arms and bliss enfold:
'Tis thy sorrow makes me cold.
Life is good, and life is fair ,
Love awaits thee everywhere:
Love! is Love's immortal prayer.
Live for love, and thou shalt be ,
Loving others, true to me:
Love, I follow, follow thee!
Thus Edith sang: the stars heard, and the night,
The happy spirits, leaning from the wall
Of Heaven, the saints, and God above them all,
Heard what she sang. She ceased: her brow was bright
With other splendor than the moon's: she rose,
Gave each a hand, and silently we trod
The dry, white gravel and the dewy sod,
And silently we parted for repose.
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