TWO HOMES.
[To a young English lady in the Hospital of the Wounded at Carlsruhe. Sept. 1870.]
WHAT does the dim gaze of the dying find To waken dream or memory, seeing you? In your sweet eyes what other eyes are blue, And in your hair what gold hair on the wind Floats of the days gone almost out of mind? In deep green valleys of the Fatherland He may remember girls with locks like thine; May dream how, where the waiting angels stand, Some lost love's eyes are dim before they shine With welcome: - so past homes, or homes to be, He sees a moment, ere, a moment blind, He crosses Death's inhospitable sea, And with brief passage of those barren lands Comes to the home that is not made with hands.
SUMMER'S ENDING.
THE flags below the shadowy fern Shine like spears between sun and sea, The tide and the summer begin to turn, And ah, for hearts, for hearts that yearn, For fires of autumn that catch and burn, For love gone out between thee and me.
The wind is up, and the weather broken, Blue seas, blue eyes, are grieved and grey, Listen, the word that the wind has spoken, Listen, the sound of the sea, - a token That summer's over, and troths are broken, - That loves depart as the hours decay.
A love has passed to the loves passed over, A month has fled to the months gone by; And none may follow, and none recover July and June,and never a lover May stay the wings of the Loves that hover, As fleet as the light in a sunset sky.
NIGHTINGALE WEATHER.
['Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non? Serai-je nonnette? je crois que non. Derriere chez mon pere Il est un bois taillis, Le rossignol y chante Et le jour et le nuit. Il chaste pour les filles Qui n'ont pas d'ami; Il ne chante pas pour moi, J'en ai un, Dieu merci.' - OLD FRENCH.]
I'LL never be a nun, I trow, While apple bloom is white as snow, But far more fair to see; I'll never wear nun's black and white While nightingales make sweet the night Within the apple tree.
Ah, listen! 'tis the nightingale, And in the wood he makes his wail, Within the apple tree; He singeth of the sore distress Of many ladies loverless; Thank God, no song for me.
For when the broad May moon is low, A gold fruit seen where blossoms blow In the boughs of the apple tree, A step I know is at the gate; Ah love, but it is long to wait Until night's noon bring thee!
Between lark's song and nightingale's A silent space, while dawning pales, The birds leave still and free For words and kisses musical, For silence and for sighs that fall In the dawn, 'twixt him and me.
LOVE AND WISDOM.
['When last we gathered roses in the garden I found my wits, but truly you lost yours.' THE BROKEN HEART.]
JULY, and June brought flowers and love To you, but I would none thereof, Whose heart kept all through summer time A flower of frost and winter rime. Yours was true wisdom - was it not? - Even love; but I had clean forgot, Till seasons of the falling leaf, All loves, but one that turned to grief. At length at touch of autumn tide, When roses fell, and summerdied, All in a dawning deep with dew, Love flew to me, love fled from you.
The roses drooped their weary heads, I spoke among the garden beds; You would not hear, you could not know, Summer and love seemed long ago, As far, as faint, as dim a dream, As to the dead this world may seem. Ah sweet, in winter's miseries, Perchance you may remember this, How wisdom was not justified In summer time or autumn-tide, Though for this once below the sun, Wisdom and love were made at one; But love was bitter-bought enough, And wisdom light of wing as love.
GOOD-BYE.
KISS me, and say good-bye; Good-bye, there is no word to say but this, Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss, Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry; Kiss me, and say, good-bye.
Farewell, be glad, forget; There is no need to say 'forget,' I know, For youth is youth, and time will have it so, And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet, Farewell, you must forget.
You shall bring home your sheaves, Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined Of memories that go not out of mind; Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves When you bring home your sheaves.
In garnered loves of thine, The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years, Somewhere let this lie, grey and salt with tears; It grew too near the sea wind, and the brine Of life, this love of mine.
This sheaf was spoiled in spring, And over-long was green, and early sere, And never gathered gold in the late year From autumn suns, and moons of harvesting, But failed in frosts of spring.
Yet was it thine my sweet, This love, though weak as young corn withered, Whereof no man may gather and make bread; Thine, though it never knew the summer heat; Forget not quite, my sweet.
AN OLD PRAYER.
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced ODYSSEY, xiii. 59.]
MY prayer an old prayer borroweth, Of ancient love and memory - 'Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death, That come to all men, come to thee.' Gently as winter's early breath, Scarce felt, what time the swallows flee, To lands whereof NO MAN KNOWETH Of summer, over land and sea; So with thy soul may summer be, Even as the ancient singer saith, 'Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death, That come to all men, come to thee.'
LOVE'S MIRACLE.
WITH other helpless folk about the gate, The gate called Beautiful, with weary eyes That take no pleasure in the summer skies, Nor all things that are fairest, does she wait; So bleak a time, so sad a changeless fate Makes her with dull experience early wise, And in the dawning and the sunset, sighs That all hath been, and shall be, desolate.
Ah, if Love come not soon, and bid her live, And know herself the fairest of fair things, Ah, if he have no healing gift to give, Warm from his breast, and holy from his wings, Or if at least Love's shadow in passing by Touch not and heal her, surely she must die.
DREAMS.