1.
When in her cloudy chiton
Spring freed the donjoned rills,
And trumpeting, a Triton,
Wind-war was on the hills;
O'er ways, hope's buds bedizen,
Long ways the glory lies on,
Love spread us an horizon
Of gold beyond life's ills.
When Summer came with sickle
Stuck in a sheaf of gleams,
And eves were honey-trickle
From bee-hives of the beams;
Scrolls of the days blue-blotted,
Scrolls of the night star-dotted,
To love and us allotted
A world of woven dreams.
When Autumn waited tired--
A fair-faced heretic--
_Auto-de-fes_ Frost fired
In Winter's Bishopric;
Our loves, a song had started,
Grew with the song sad-hearted,
Sweet loves long-sworn were parted,
Though life for love was sick.
Now is the Winter waited
'Neath skies of frozen gold,
Or raining heavens hated
Of winds that curse and scold.--
Shall this be so: that never
Shall sunlight snowlight sever?
Forever and forever
The heart wait winter-cold?
2.
Soft music bring that seems to weep
All this dull sorrow of the soul;
Vague music soft to utter sleep,
Sleep and undying dole:
Forgetting not--forgotten most--
How love is well though lost.
So weary, oh! and yet so fain
In silent service of the heart;
Still feeling if it be in vain
Love's spirit hath His part;
And if in death God grant the rest
Life were but kind at best.
3.
Last night I slept till midnight
Then woke, and far away
A cock crowed; lonely and distant
Came mournful a watch-dog's bay;
But lonelier, slower the tedious
Old clock ticked on towards day.
And what a day!--remember
The morns of a Summer and Spring,
That bound two lives together?
Each morn a wedding ring
Of dew and dreams and sparkle,
Of flowers and birds a-wing?
Broad morns when I strolled the garden
Awaiting one the rose
Expected, fresh in its blushes--
The Giant of Battle that grows
A head of radiance and fragrance,
The champion of the close.
Not in vain did I wait, departed
Summer, this morning mocks;
'Mid the powdery crystal and crimson
Of your hollow hollyhocks;
Your fairy-bells and poppies,
And the bee that in them rocks.
Cool-clad 'mid the pendulous purple
Of the morning-glory vine,
By the giant pearls pellucid
Of the peonies a-line,
The snapdragons' and the pansies'
Deep-colored jewel mine.
Shall I ever see my mealy,
Drunk dusty-millers gay;
My lady-slippers bashful
Of butterfly and ray;
My gillyflowers as spicy
Each as a day of May?
Oh, dear when I think of the handfuls
Of little gold coin a-mass,
My bachelor's-buttons scatter
Over the garden grass;
Of the marigold that boasts its
One bit of burning brass;
More bitter I feel the winter
Tighten to spirit and heart;
And dream of the days remembered
As lost--of the past a part;
Of the ways we went, all blotted,
Tear-blotted on love's chart.
And I see the mill and the diamonds
Of foam tossed from its wheel;
Red lilies tumbled together,
The madcap wind at heel;
And the timid veronicas' blossoms--
Those prayers the woods conceal.
The wild-cat gray of the meadows
That the ox-eyed daisies dot,
Fawn-eyed and a leopard-yellow,
That tangle a tawny spot--
As if some panther tired
Lay dozing tame and hot.
Ah! back again with the present,
With winds that pinch and twist
Each leaf in their peevish passion,
And whirl wherever they list;
With the morning hoary and nipping,
Whose mausolean mist
Builds white a tomb for the daylight--
A frosty, shaggy fog,
That fits gray wigs on the cedars,
And furs with wool each log;
Carpets with satin the meadow,
And velvets white the bog.
Alone at morn--indifferent;
Alone at eve--I sigh;
And wait, like the wind complaining,
Complain and know not why;
But ailing and longing and hating
Because I cannot die.
How dull are the sunsets! dreary
Cold, hard and harsh and dead!
Far richer were those of August,
One stain of wine-dark red--
The juice of a mulberry vintage--
To the new moon overhead.
But now I sit with the sighing
Dead wests of a dying year!
Like the fallen leaves and the acorns
Am worthless and feel as sear;
For the soul and the body sicken,
And the heart's one scalding tear.
And I stare from my window! The darkness,
Like a bravo, his cloak throws on;
The moon, like a hidden lanthorn,
Glitters--or dagger drawn;
All my heart cries out beseeching:
"Strike here! strike and be gone!"
4.
When friends are sighing
Round one and one
Nearer is lying,
Nearer the sun,
When one is dying
And all is done;
I may remember,
You may forget
Words, each an ember,
Burning here yet--
In dead December
One will regret.
Love we have given,
Over and o'er,
All, who has driven
Us from his door,
Is he forgiven
When he is poor?
What if you wept once,
What though he knew!
What if he slept once!
Still he was true,
If he but kept once
Something of you.
Never forgetful,
Love may forget;
Froward and fretful,
Child, he will fret;
Ever regretful,
He will regret.
Love would be sweeter
If we but knew;
Lives be completer
To themselves true;
Hearts more in metre,
Truth looking through.
Flesh never near it,
Being impure,
Mind must endear it
Making it sure--
Love in the spirit,
That will endure.
So when to-morrow
Ceases and we
Quit this we borrow,
Mortality,
Such chastens sorrow
So it may see.
There will be weeping,
Weary and deep,--
God's be the keeping
Of those that weep!--
When our loved, sleeping,
Sleep their long sleep;
Then they are dearer
Than we're aware;
Character clearer,
Being more fair;
Then they are nearer,
Nearer by prayer.
5.
They will not say I can not live beyond the weary night,
But then I know that I shall die before comes morning's light.
How frail is flesh!--but you 'll forgive me now I tell you how
I loved you, love you; and the pain it gives to leave you now?
This could not be on earth; the flesh, that clothes the soul of me--
Ordained at birth a sacrifice to this heredity--
Denied, forbade.--Ah, you have seen the bright spots in my cheeks
Grow hectic, as before comes night blood dyes the sunset's streaks?
Consumption. "But I promised you my love"--'t is left forlorn
Of life God summons unto him, and is it then forsworn?
Oh, I was glad in love of you; but think: if I had died
Ere babe of mine had come to be a solace at your side?
Had it been little then, your grief, when Heaven had made us one
In everything that's good on earth and then the good undone?
No! no!--and had I lived to raise a boy we saw each day
Bud into beauty, with that blight born in him that must slay!
Just when we cherish him the most, and youthful, sunny pride
Sits on his curly front, he pines and dies ere I have died.
Whose fault?--not mine! but hers or his, that ancestor who gave
Escutcheon to our humble house--a death's-head and a grave.
Beneath the pomp of those grim arms we live and may not move;
Nor faith, nor fame, nor wealth avail to hurl them down, nor love.
How could I tell you this?--not then! when all the world was spun
Of morning colors for our love to walk and dance upon.
I could not tell you how disease hid here a viper germ,
Precedence slowly claiming and so slowly fixing firm.
And when I broke our plighted troth and would not tell you why,
I loved you, thinking "time enough when I have come to die."
Draw off my rings and let my hands rest so ... the wretched cough
Will interrupt my feeble speech and will not be put off....
Ah, anyhow, my anodyne is this--to feel that you
Are near me, that your healthy hand soothes mine's unhealthy dew.
And that your heart excuses all, and that you will not fret
Because you understand me now and never will forget.--
Now bring me roses pale and pure and tell me death's a lie,
--Late was it hard for me to live, now it is hard to die.