Hawthorn and Lavender | Page 5

of gold?Among the heart's still sainted memories,?And irk, and thrill, and ravish, and beseech,?Even when the dream of dreams in death's a-cold??No, there was none of these,?Dear one, and yet--?O, eyes on eyes! O, voices breaking still,?For all the watchful will,?Into a kinder kindness than seemed due?From you to me, and me to you!?And that hot-eyed, close-throated, blind regret?Of woman and man baulked and debarred the blue!--?No kiss--no kiss that day??Nay, rather, though we seemed to wear the rue,?Sweet friend, how many, and how goodly--say!
XXXV
Sing to me, sing, and sing again,
My glad, great-throated nightingale:?Sing, as the good sun through the rain--
Sing, as the home-wind in the sail!
Sing to me life, and toil, and time,
O bugle of dawn, O flute of rest!?Sing, and once more, as in the prime,
There shall be naught but seems the best.
And sing me at the last of love:
Sing that old magic of the May,?That makes the great world laugh and move
As lightly as our dream to-day!
XXXVI
_We sat late_, _late_--_talking of many things_.?_He told me of his grief_, _and_, _in the telling_,?_The gist of his tale showed to me_, _rhymed_, _like this_.
It came, the news, like a fire in the night,
That life and its best were done;?And there was never so dazed a wretch
In the beat of the living sun.
I read the news, and the terms of the news
Reeled random round my brain?Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom
Of a bluefly in the pane.
So I went for the news to the house of the news,
But the words were left unsaid,?For the face of the house was blank with blinds,
And I knew that she was dead.
XXXVII
'Twas in a world of living leaves?That we two reaped and bound our sheaves:?They were of white roses and red,?And in the scything they were dead.
Now the high Autumn flames afield,?And what is all his golden yield?To that we took, and sheaved, and bound?In the green dusk that gladdened round?
Yet must the memory grieve and ache?Of that we did for dear love's sake,?But may no more under the sun,?Being, like our summer, spent and done.
XXXVIII
Since those we love and those we hate,?With all things mean and all things great,?Pass in a desperate disarray?_Over the hills and far away_:
It must be, Dear, that, late or soon,?Out of the ken of the watching moon,?We shall abscond with Yesterday?_Over the hills and far away_.
What does it matter? As I deem,?We shall but follow as brave a dream?As ever smiled a wanton May?_Over the hills and far away_.
We shall remember, and, in pride,?Fare forth, fulfilled and satisfied,?Into the land of Ever-and-Aye,?_Over the hills and far away_.
XXXIX
These were the woods of wonder
We found so close and boon,?When the bride-month in her beauty
Lay mouth to mouth with June.
November, the old, lean widow,
Sniffs, and snivels, and shrills,?And the bowers are all dismantled,
And the long grass wets and chills;
And I hate these dismal dawnings,
These miserable even-ends,?These orts, and rags, and heeltaps--
This dream of being merely friends.
XL
'Dearest, when I am dead,
Make one last song for me:?Sing what I would have said--
Righting life's wrong for me.
'Tell them how, early and late,
Glad ran the days with me,?Seeing how goodly and great,
Love, were your ways with me.'
XLI
Dear hands, so many times so much
When the spent year was green and prime,?Come, take your fill, and touch
This one poor time.
Dear lips, that could not leave unsaid
One sweet-souled syllable of delight,?Once more--and be as dead
In the dead night.
Dear eyes, so fond to read in mine
The message of our counted years,?Look your proud last, nor shine
Through tears--through tears.
XLII
When, in what other life,?Where in what old, spent star,?Systems ago, dead vastitudes afar,?Were we two bird and bough, or man and wife??Or wave and spar??Or I the beating sea, and you the bar?On which it breaks? I know not, I!?But this, O this, my Very Dear, I know:?Your voice awakes old echoes in my heart;?And things I say to you now are said once more;?And, Sweet, when we two part,?I feel I have seen you falter and linger so,?So hesitate, and turn, and cling--yet go,?As once in some immemorable Before,?Once on some fortunate yet thrice-blasted shore.?Was it for good??O, these poor eyes are wet;?And yet, O, yet,?Now that we know, I would not, if I could,?Forget.
XLIII
The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain--
They are with us like a disease:?They worry the heart, they work the brain,?As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane,
And savage the helpless trees.
What does it profit a man to know
These tattered and tumbling skies?A million stately stars will show,?And the ruining grace of the after-glow
And the rush of the wild sunrise?
Ever the rain--the rain and the wind!
Come, hunch with me over the fire,?Dream of the dreams that leered and grinned,?Ere the blood of the Year got chilled and thinned,
And the death came on desire!
XLIV
_He made this gracious Earth a hell_?_With Love and Drink_. _I