THE WATCHER
"I think I hear the sound of horses feet Beating upon the gravelled avenue.
Go to the window that looks on the street, He would not let me die alone, I knew."
Back to the couch the patient watcher pa.s.sed, And said: "It is the wailing of the blast."
She turned upon her couch and, seeming, slept, The long, dark lashes shadowing her cheek; And on and on the weary moments crept, When suddenly the watcher heard her speak: "I think I hear the sound of horses" hoofs--"
And answered, ""Tis the rain upon the roofs."
Unbroken silence, quiet, deep, profound.
The restless sleeper turns: "How dark, how late!
What is it that I hear--a trampling sound?
I think there is a horseman at the gate."
The watcher turns away her eyes tear-blind: "It is the shutter beating in the wind."
The dread hours pa.s.sed; the patient clock ticked on; The weary watcher moved not from her place.
The grey dim shadows of the early dawn Caught sudden glory from the sleeper"s face.
"He comes! my love! I knew he would!" she cried; And, smiling sweetly in her slumbers, died.
HOW WILL IT BE?
How will it be when one of us alone Goes on that strange last journey of the soul?
That certain search for an uncertain goal, That voyage on which no comradeship is known?
Will our dear sea sing with the old sweet tone, Though one sits stricken where its billows roll?
Will s.p.a.ce be dumb, or from the mystic pole Will spirit-messages be backward blown?
When our united lives are wrenched apart, And day no more means fond companionship, When fervent night, and lovely languorous dawn, Are only memories to one sad heart, And but in dreams love-kisses burn the lip,-- Dear G.o.d, how can this same fair world move on?
MEMORY"S RIVER
In Nature"s bright blossoms not always reposes That strange subtle essence more rare than their bloom, Which lies in the hearts of carnations and roses, That unexplained something by men called perfume.
Though modest the flower, yet great is its power And pregnant with meaning each pistil and leaf, If only it hides there, if only abides there, The fragrance suggestive of love, joy, and grief.
Not always the air that a master composes Can stir human heart-strings with pleasure or pain.
But strange, subtle chords, like the scent of the roses, Breathe out of some measures, though simple the strain.
And lo! when you hear them, you love them and fear them, You tremble with anguish, you thrill with delight, For back of them slumber old dreams without number, And faces long vanished peer out into sight.
Those dear foolish days when the earth seemed all beauty, Before you had knowledge enough to be sad; When youth held no higher ideal of duty Than just to lilt on through the world and be glad.
On harmony"s river they seemed to afloat hither With all the sweet fancies that hung round that time-- Life"s burdens and troubles turn into air-bubbles And break on the music"s swift current of rhyme.
Fair Folly comes back with her spell while you listen And points to the paths where she led you of old.
You gaze on past sunsets, you see dead stars glisten, You bathe in life"s glory, you swoon in death"s cold.
All pains and all pleasures surge up through those measures, Your heart is wrenched open with earthquakes of sound; From ashes and embers rise Junes and Decembers, Lost islands in fathoms of feeling refound.
Some airs are like outlets of memory"s oceans, They rise in the past and flow into the heart; And down them float shipwrecks of mighty emotions, All sea-soaked and storm-tossed and drifting apart: Their fair timbers battered, their lordly sails tattered, Their skeleton crew of dead days on their decks; Then a crash of chords blending, a crisis, an ending-- The music is over, and vanished the wrecks.
LOVE"S WAY
Love gives us copious potions of delight, Of pain and ecstasy, and peace and care; Love leads us upward, to the mountain height, And, like an angel, stands beside us there; Then thrusts us, demon-like, in some abyss: Where, in the darkness of despair, we grope, Till, suddenly, Love greets us with a kiss And guides us back to flowery fields of hope.
Love makes all wisdom seem but poorest folly, And yet the simplest mind with Love grows wise, The gayest heart he teaches melancholy, Yet glorifies the erstwhile brooding eyes.
Love lives on change, and yet at change Love mocks, For Love"s whole life is one great paradox.
A MAN"S LAST LOVE
Like the tenth wave, that offers to the sh.o.r.e Acc.u.mulated opulence and force, So does my heart, which thought it loved of yore, Carry increasing pa.s.sion down the course Of time to proffer thee.
Oh! not the faint First ripple of the sea should be its pride, But the great climax of its unrestraint, Which culminates in one commanding tide.
The lesser billows of each crude emotion Break on life"s strand, recede, and then unite With love"s large sea; and to some late devotion Unrecognised, they bring their lost delight.
So all the vanished fancies of my past Live yet in this one pa.s.sion, grand and vast.
THE LADY AND THE DAME
So thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest, To keep Time"s perishing touch at bay From the roseate splendour of the cheek so tender, And the silver threads from the gold away; And the tell-tale years that have hurried by us Shall tiptoe back, and, with kind good-will, They shall take their traces from off our faces, If we will trust to thy magic skill.
Thou speakest fairly; but if I listen And buy thy secret and prove its truth, Hast thou the potion and magic lotion To give me also the _heart_ of youth?
With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty, And the l.u.s.trous locks of life"s lost prime, Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing That made the glory of that dead Time?
When the sap in the trees sets young buds bursting, And the song of the birds fills the air like spray, Will rivers of feeling come once more stealing From the beautiful hills of the far-away?
Wilt thou demolish the tower of reason And fling for ever down into the dust The caution Time brought me, the lessons life taught me, And put in their places my old sweet trust?
If Time"s footprint from my brow is driven, Canst thou, too, take with thy subtle powers The burden of thinking, and let me go drinking The careless pleasures of youth"s bright hours?
If silver threads from my tresses vanish, If a glow once more in my pale cheek gleams, Wilt thou slay duty and give back the beauty Of days untroubled by aught but dreams?
When the soft, fair arms of the siren Summer Encircle the earth in their languorous fold.
Will vast, deep oceans of sweet emotions Surge through my veins as they surged of old?