Along the Shore | Page 5

glee,?Young as the May is she,?Strong as the June I am.
FIRST BLOOM OF LOVE.
O girl of spring! O brown-eyed girl!?Gathering violets near the woods,?Whose coy young petals half unfurl?The mystery of their dulcet moods.
O blushing girl! O girl of spring!?I hear no answer move the air;?Yet eyelids hovering on the wing?Reveal deep meanings curtained there.
O girl of spring! O spring of love!?Let silent violets be the speech?From you to me, and let them prove?What maiden silence will not teach!
A WOOING SONG.
O love, I come; thy last glance guideth me!?Drawn, too, by webs of shadow, like thine hair;?For, Sweet, the mystery?Of thy dark hair the deepening dusk hath caught.?In early moonlight gleamings, lo, I see?Thy white hands beckon to the garden, where?Dim day and silvery darkness are inwrought?As our two lives, where, joining soul with soul,?The tints shall mingle in a fairer whole.?Oh! dost thou hear? I call, beloved, I call,?My stout heart trembling till thy words return;?Hope-lifted, I float faster with the fall?Of fear toward joy such fear alone can earn!
DOROTHY.
Dear little Dorothy, she is no more!?I have wandered world-wide, from shore to shore,?I have seen as great beauties as ever were wed;?But none can console me for Dorothy dead.
Dear little Dorothy! How strange it seems?That her face is less real than the faces of dreams;?That the love which kept true, and the lips which so spoke, Are more lost than my heart, which died not when it broke!
MORNING SONG.
Turn thy face to me, my love,?I come from out the morning;?Give thy hand to me, my love,?I'm dewy from the dawning.
Touch my lips with thine, my love,?I've tasted air at daybreak;?Gaze into my eyes, my love,?At the sky's waking they wake.
LOOKING BACKWARD.
Gray towers make me think of thee,?Thou girl of olden minstrelsy,?Young as the sunlight of to-day,?Silent as tasselled boughs in May!
A wind-flower in a world of harm,?A harebell on a turret's arm,?A pearl upon the hilt of fame?Thou wert, fair child of some high name.
The velvet page, the deep-eyed knight,?The heartless falcon, poised for flight,?The dainty steed and graceful hound,?In thee their keenest rapture found.
But for old ballads, and the rhyme?And writ of genius o'er the time?When keeps had newly reared their towers,?The winning scene had not been ours.
O Chivalry! thy age was fair,?When even knaves set out to dare?Their heads for any barbarous crime,?And hate was brave, and love sublime.
The bugle-note I send so far?Across Time's moors to thee, sweet star,?Where stands thy castle in its mist,?Hear, if the wandering breezes list!
UNLOVED.
Paler than the water's white?Stood the maiden in the shade,?And more silent than the night?Were her lips together laid;
Eyes she hid so long and still?By lids wet with unshed tears,?Hands she loosely clasped at will,?Though her heart was full of fears.
Never, never, never more?May her soul with joy be moved;?Silent, silent, silent,--for?He was silent whom she loved.
THE CLOCK'S SONG.
Eileen of four,?Eileen of smiles;?Eileen of five,?Eileen of tears;?Eileen of ten, of fifteen years,?Eileen of youth?And woman's wiles;?Eileen of twenty,?In love's land,?Eileen all tender?In her bliss,?Untouched by sorrow's treacherous kiss,?And the sly weapon in life's hand,--?Eileen aroused to share all fate,?Eileen a wife,?Pale, beautiful,?Eileen most grave?And dutiful,?Mourning her dreams in queenly state.?Eileen! Eileen!....
BROKEN-HEARTED.
"Cross my hands upon my breast,"?Read her last behest.?"Turn my cheek upon the pillow,?As resting from life's stormy billow?With sleep's fine zest!"
"Cross my hands upon my breast,"?Read her last behest,?"That the patient bones may lie?In form of thanks eternally,?Grimly expressed!"
We clasped her hands upon her breast:?Oh mockery at misery's hest!?We hid in flowers her body's grief,--?Counting by many a rose and leaf?Her days unblessed!
THE CYNIC'S FEALTY.
We all have hearts that shake alike?Beneath the arias of Fate's hand;?Although the cynics sneering stand,?These too the deathless powers strike.
A trembling lover's infinite trust,?To the last drop of doating blood,?Feels not alone the ocean flood?Of desperate grief, when dreams are dust.
The scornfullest souls, with mourning eyes,?Pant o'er again their ghostly ways;--?Dread night-paths, where were gleaming days?When life was lovelier than the skies!
THE GIRLS WE MIGHT HAVE WED.
Come, brothers, let us sing a dirge,--?A dirge for myriad chances dead;?In grief your mournful accents merge:?Sing, sing the girls we might have wed!
Sweet lips were those we never pressed?In love that never lost the dew?In sunlight of a love confessed,--?Kind were the girls we never knew!
Sing low, sing low, while in the glow?Of fancy's hour those forms we trace,?Hovering around the years that go;?Those years our lives can ne'er replace!
Sweet lips are those that never turn?A cruel word; dear eyes that lead?The heart on in a blithe concern;?White hand of her we did not wed;
Fair hair or dark, that falls along?A form that never shrinks with time;?Bright image of a realm of song,?Standing beside our years of prime;--
When you shall go, then may we know?The heart is dead, the man is old.?Life can no other charm bestow?When girls we might have loved turn cold!
"NEITHER!"
So