Dreams and Days | Page 4

had such deep
drifts been seen!
But "Snow lies light upon my heart!
An thou," said merry Jonathan
Rudd,
"Wilt wed me, winter shall depart,
And love like spring for
us shall bud."
"Nay, how," said Mary, "may that be?
No minister nor magistrate
Is
here, to join us solemnly;
And snow-banks bar us, every gate."
"Winthrop at Pequot Harbor lies,"
He laughed. And with the
morrow's sun
He faced the deputy's dark eyes:
"How soon, sir, may
the rite be done?"
"At Saybrook? There the power's not mine,"
Said he. "But at the
brook we'll meet,
That ripples down the boundary line;
There you
may wed, and Heaven shall see't."
Forth went, next day, the bridal train
Through vistas dreamy with
gray light.
The waiting woods, the open plain,
Arrayed in
consecrated white,
Received and ushered them, along.
The very beasts before them fled,

Charmed by the spell of inward song
These lovers' hearts around

them spread.
Four men with netted foot-gear shod
Bore the maid's carrying-chair
aloft;
She swayed above, as roses nod
On the lithe stem their
bloom-weight soft.
At last beside the brook they stood,
With Winthrop and his followers;

The maid in flake-embroidered hood,
The magistrate well cloaked
in furs,
That, parting, showed a glimpse beneath
Of ample, throat-encircling
ruff
As white as some wind-gathered wreath
Of snow quilled into
plait and puff.
A few grave words, a question asked;
Eyelids that with the answer
fell
Like falling petals;--form that tasked
Brief time;--and so was
wrought the spell!
Then "Brooklet," Winthrop smiled and said,
"Frost's finger on thy lip
makes dumb
The voice wherewith thou shouldst have sped
These
lovers on their way. But, come,
"Henceforth forever be thou known
By memory of this day's fair
bride:
So shall thy slender music's moan
Sweeter into the ocean
glide!"
Then laughed they all, and sudden beams
Of sunshine quivered
through the sky.
Below the ice, the unheard stream's
Clear heart
thrilled on in ecstasy;
And lo, a visionary blush
Stole warmly o'er the voiceless wild;
And
in her rapt and wintry hush
The lonely face of Nature smiled.
Ah, Time, what wilt thou? Vanished quite
Is all that tender vision
now;
And, like lost snow-flakes in the night,
Mute are the lovers as
their vow.

And O thou little, careless brook,
Hast thou thy tender trust forgot?

Her modest memory forsook,
Whose name, known once, thou
utterest not?
Spring wakes the rill's blithe minstrelsy;
In willow bough or alder
bush
Birds sing, o'er golden filigree
Of pebbles 'neath the flood's
clear gush;
But none can tell us of that name
More than the "Mary." Men still say

"Bride Brook" in honor of her fame;
But all the rest has passed
away.
MAY-ROSE
[FOR A BIRTHDAY: MAY 20]
On this day to life she came--
May-Rose, my May-Rose!
With scented breeze, with flowered flame,

She touched the earth and took her name
Of May, Rose.
Here, to-day, she grows and flowers--
May-Rose, my May-Rose.
All my life with light she dowers,
And
colors all the coming hours
With May, Rose!
THE SINGING WIRE
Ethereal, faint that music rang,
As, with the bosom of the breeze,
It
rose and fell and murmuring sang
Aeolian harmonies!
I turned; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung

From off the wire, came shaped in words;
And thus meseemed,

they sung:
"I, messenger of many fates,
Strung to the tones of woe or weal,

Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
With all men know or feel,--
"Is it so strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,

When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.
"There is a spirit in the post;
It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its
withered, sad, imprisoned ghost
Echoes my melody.
"Come close, and lay your listening ear
Against the bare and
branchless wood.
Can you not hear it crooning clear,
As though it
understood?"
I listened to the branchless pole
That held aloft the singing wire;
I
heard its muffled music roll,
And stirred with sweet desire:
"O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
Hast thou no sunlit word for
me?
Though long to me so coyly mute,
Her heart may speak
through thee!"
I listened, but it was in vain.
At first, the wind's old wayward will

Drew forth the tearless, sad refrain.
That ceased; and all was still.
But suddenly some kindling shock
Struck flashing through the wire: a
bird,
Poised on it, screamed and flew; the flock
Rose with him;
wheeled and whirred.
Then to my soul there came this sense:
"Her heart has answered unto
thine;
She comes, to-night. Go, speed thee hence:
Meet her; no
more repine!"
Perhaps the fancy was far-fetched;
And yet, perhaps, it hinted true.

Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched
In mine, that gave
me--you!

And so more dear to me has grown
Than rarest tones swept from the
lyre,
The minor movement of that moan
In yonder singing wire.
Nor care I for the will of states,
Or aught beside, that smites that
string,
Since then so close it knit our fates,
What time the bird took
wing!
THE HEART OF A SONG
Dear love, let this my song fly to you:
Perchance forget it came from
me.
It shall not vex you, shall not woo you;
But in your breast lie
quietly.
Only beware, when once it tarries
I cannot coax it