LAID close to Death, these many thousand years,
In this small seed Life hid herself and smiled;
So well she hid, Death was at least beguiled,
Set free the grain—and lo! the sevenfold ears!
Warmed by the sun, wooed by the wind's soft word,
Under blue canopy they hold their state:
For this, ah, was it not worth while to wait
Through all the centuries of hope deferred?
What could they know who laid the seed with Death
Of this Divine fruition fixed and planned?
Love—since Life parts us—lend my hand your hand
And look with me into the eyes of faith.
For here between your hand and mine there lies
A little seed we trust to Death to keep
Through unimagined centuries of sleep
Until the day when Life shall bid it rise.
Our harvest waits us. Who knows where or how,
What worlds away, wrapped in what coil of pain?
But Life shall bid us pluck gold sevenfold grain
Grown from the love she bids us bury now.
MY beautiful beech, your smooth grey coat is trimmed
With letters. Once, each stood for all things dear
To foolish lovers, dead this many a year,
Whose lamp of lighted love so soon was dimmed.
You have seen them come and go,
And heard their kisses and vows
Under your boughs,
The pitiful vows they swore,
Have seen their poor tears flow,
Have seen them part; to meet, and to return, no more!
And in old winters, through your branches bare,
The north wind drove the blue home-scented smoke
That on the glowing Christmas hearth awoke
Where the old logs, with eager flicker and flare,
Sang their low crackling song
Of peace and of good will.
The old song is still,
The old voices have died away,
The hearth has been cold so long,
And the bright faces dimmed and covered up with clay.
And summer after summer wakes to glow
The ordered pleasance with the clipped box-hedge,
The drooping lilac by the old moat's edge,
The roses, that throw you kisses from below,
The orchard pink and white,
The sedge's whispered words,
The nesting birds,
All these return to revel round your feet.
And in the untroubled night
The nightingale still sings, the jasmine still is sweet.
My beautiful beech, I carve upon you here
The master-letter which begins her name
Through whom, to me, the royal summer came,
And nightingale and rose, and all things dear.
And, in some far-off time,
I shall come here, weary and old,
When the hearth in my heart is cold
And the birds that nest there flown;
I will remember this summer in all its prime
And say, "There was a day—
Thank God, the Giver, an unforgotten day,
When I walked here, not alone,
—O God of pity and sorrow, not alone!"
WAKE, do you wake in the dark in the strange far place,
Window and door not set like the ones we knew,
Leaning your face through the dark for another face,
Stretching your arms to the arms that are far from you,
Even as I, through the depth of this darkness, do?
Sleep, do you sleep in the house in the lonely land?
In the lonely room do you hear no steps draw near?
Do you miss in the darkness the hand that implores your hand,
See through the darkness your last dream disappear,
And weep, as I weep, in the outer darkness here?
Dream, do you dream? Nay, never a dream will stay,
Never a phantom is fond, or a vision kind.
Your dreams elude you and fly through the dark my way,
My dreams fly forth to you whom they may not find;
And we in the darkness weep, we weep and are left behind.
So silent is the world to-night
The lamp gives silence out like light,
The latticed windows open wide
Show silence, like the night, outside:
The nightingale's faint song draws near
Like musical silence to mine ear.
The empty house calls not to me,
"Here, but for fate, were thou and she—"
Its gibe for once is checked. To-night
Silence is queen in grief's despite,
And even the longing of my soul
Is silent 'neath this hour's control.
O WEARY night, O weary day,
When heart's delight is far away!
What is the day? A frame of blue
The vacant-glaring sun grins through.
What is the night? A sable veil
Through which the moon peers tired and pale.
O weary day! O weary night!
How far away is heart's delight!
Love hung the sun in his high place
To give me light to see her face,
And love spread out the veil of night
To hide us two from all men's sight.
O kindly night, O pleasant day,
Your use is gone—why should ye stay?
My heart's delight is far away,
O weary night, O weary day.
If I could make a pillow for your head,
Soft, pleasant, filled with every pretty thought;
If I could lay a carpet where you tread
Of all my life's most radiant fancies wrought,
And spread my love as canopy above you,
Your sleep, your steps should know how much I love you.
But—as life goes, to the old sorry tune—
I stand apart, I see thorns wound your feet,
Your sleeping eyes resenting sun and moon,
Your head lie restless on a breast unmeet—
And say no word, and suffer without moan,
Lest you should guess how much you are alone.
I PLUCKED the blossoms of delight
In many a wood and many a field,
I made a garland fair and bright
As any gardens yield.
But when I sought the living tree
To make new earth and Heaven new,
I found—alas for you and me—
Its roots were set in you.
Oh, dear my garden, where the fruit
Of lovely knowledge sweetly springs,
How jealously you guard the root
Of all enlightening things!
AND you could leave me now—
After the first remembered whispered vow
Which sings for ever and ever in my ears—
The vow which God among His Angels hears—
After the long-drawn years,
The slow hard tears,
Could break new ground, and wake
A new strange garden to blossom for your sake,
And leave me here alone,
In the old garden that was once our own?
How should I learn to bear
Our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air,
Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn,
When only in a picture these appear—
These, once alive, and always over-dear?
Ah—think again: the rose you used to wear
Must still be more than other roses be
The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me!
For in my acres is no plot of ground
Whereon could any garden site be found,
I have but little skill
To water weed and till
And make the desert blossom like the rose;
Yet our old garden knows
If I have loved its ways and walks and kept
The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.
Yet—if you must—go now:
Go, with my blessing filling both your hands,
And, mid the desert sands
Which life drifts deep round every garden wall,
Make your new festival
Of bud and blossom—red rose and green leaf.
No blight born of my grief
Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart's prayer
Shall draw down blessings on you from the air,
And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree
Shall serve you when you walk no more with me
In garden ways; and when with her you tread
The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead
And when she asks, "How did you come to know
The secrets of the ways these green things grow?"
Then you will answer—and I, please God, hear,
"I had another garden once, my dear".
I HEAR the waves to-night
Piteously calling, calling
Though the light
Of the kind moon is falling,
Like kisses, on the sea
That calls for sunshine, dear, as my soul calls for thee.
I see the sea lie gray
Wrinkling her brows in sorrow,
Hear her say:—
"Bright love of yesterday, return to-morrow,
Sun, I am thine, am thine!"
Oh sea, thy love will come again, but what of mine?
ROSE of the desert of my heart,
Moon of the night that is my soul,
Thou can'st not know how sweet thou art,
Nor what wild tides thy beams control.
For all thy heart a garden is,
Thy soul is like a dawn of May.
And garden and dawn might both be his,
Who from them both must turn away.
Oh, garden of the Spring's delight!
Oh, dewy dawn of perfect noon!
I will not pluck thy roses white
Or warm thy May-time into June.
I can but bless thee, moon and rose,
And journey far and very far
To where the night no moonbeam shows,
To where no happy roses are!
SWEET, I have loved before. I know
This longing that invades my days;
This shape that haunts life's busy ways
I know since long and long ago.
This starry mystery of delight
That floats across my eager eyes,
This pain that makes earth Paradise,
These magic songs of day and night—
I know them for the things they are:
A passing pain, a longing fleet,
A shape that soon I shall not meet,
A fading dream of veil and star.
Yet, even as my lips proclaim
The wisdom that the years have lent,
Your absence is joy's banishment,
And life's one music is your name.
I love you to my heart's hid core:
Those other loves? how should one learn
From marshlights how the great fires burn?
Ah, no! I never loved before!
THE sunshine of your presence lies
On the glad garden of my heart
And bids the leaves of silence part
To show the flowers to your dear eyes,
And flower on flower blooms there and dies
And still new buds awakened spring,
For sunshine makes the garden wise,
To know the time for blossoming.
Night is no time for blossoming,
Your garden then dreams otherwise,
Of vanished Summer, vanished Spring,
And how the dearest flower first dies.
Yet from your ministering eyes
Though night hath drawn me far apart
On the still garden of my heart
The moonlight of your memory lies.
IF I only had time!
I could make you a rhyme.
But my time is kept flying
By smiling and sighing
And living and dying for you.
The song-seed, I sow it,
I water and hoe it,
But never can grow it.
Ah, traitress, you know it!
What is a poor poet to do?
Ah, let me take breath!
I am harried to death
By the loves and the graces
That crowd where your face is
That lurk in your laces and throng.
Call them off for a minute,
Once let me begin it
The devil is in it
If I can not spin it
As sweet as a linnet, your song!
ALL the flight of thoughts here, shy, bold, scared, intrusive,
Fluttering in the sun, between the green and blue,
Wheeling, whirling, poising, lovely and elusive,
How to cage the flying thoughts, my winged delight, for you?
Set a springe of rhyme, and hope to catch them in it?
Strew my love as grain to lure them to the snare?
Watch the hours built up, slow minute piled on minute?
Still the wide sky guards their flight, and still the cage is bare.
Gleam of hovering feathers, brushing me to flout me!
Wings, be weary! Rest! Who loves you more than I?
Caught? Oh fluttering pinions whitening air about me!
Rustling wings, and distant flight, and empty cage and sky!
SPRING, pretty Spring, what treasure do you bring to me?
Green grass and buttercups, cherry-bloom and may?
Sunshine to be glad with me, and little birds to sing to me?
Warm nests to call me along the woodland way?
Spring, happy Spring, what wonder will you do for me?
Light the tulip lanterns, and set the furze a-fire?
Fill your sky with sails of cloud on waves of living blue for me?
Show me green cornfields and budding of the briar?
Spring, darling Spring, my days will not return to me,
You who see them fleeting, you, all time above,
You who move the whole world's heart, ah move one heart to turn to me,
—Bring me a lover, and teach me how to love!
"LOVE me little, love me long,"
Is the burden of my song,
And if nothing more may be
Little shall suffice for me.
But if you could crown with flowers
All my radiant, festal hours,
And console for hours of sorrow
Love me more with each to-morrow.
And if you would turn my days
To one splendid hymn of praise,
And set hopes like stars above me
Love me much, and always love me!
THROUGH many days and many days
The seed of love lay hidden close;
We walked the dusty tiresome ways
Where never a leaf or blossom grows.
And in the darkness, all the while,
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