Hawthorn and Lavender | Page 4

strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is
the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the
living, are damned and dead.
XXII
Between the dusk of a summer night

And the dawn of a summer day,
We caught at a mood as it passed in
flight,
And we bade it stoop and stay.
And what with the dawn of night
began
With the dusk of day was done;
For that is the way of woman and
man,
When a hazard has made them one.
Arc upon arc, from shade to shine,
The World went thundering free;
And what was his errand but hers
and mine--
The lords of him, I and she?
O, it's die we must, but it's live we can,
And the marvel of earth and sun
Is all for the joy of woman and man
And the longing that makes them one.
XXIII
I took a hansom on to-day
For a round I used to know--
That I used to take for a woman's sake
In a fever of to-and-fro.
There were the landmarks one and all--
What did they stand to show?
Street and square and river were there--
Where was the antient woe?
Never a hint of a challenging hope

Nor a hope laid sick and low,
But a longing dead as its kindred sped
A thousand years ago!
XXIV
Only a freakish wisp of hair?--
Nay, but its wildest, its most frolic
whorl
Stands for a slim, enamoured, sweet-fleshed girl!
And so, a
tangle of dream and charm and fun,
Its every crook a promise and a
snare,
Its every dowle, or genially gadding
Or crisply curled,

Heartening and madding,
Empales a novel and peculiar world
Of
right, essential fantasies,
And shining acts as yet undone,
But in
these wonder-working days
Soon, soon to ask our sovran Lord, the
Sun,
For countenance and praise,
As of the best his storying eye
hath seen,
And his vast memory can parallel,
Among the darling
victories--
Beneficent, beautiful, inexpressible--
Of life on time!--
Yet have they flashed and been
In millions, since 'twas his to bring

The heaven-creating Spring,
An angel of adventure and delight,
In
all her beauty and all her strength and worth,
With her great guerdons
of romance and spright,
And those high needs that fill the flesh with
might,
Home to the citizens of this good, green earth.
Poor souls--they have but time and place
To play their transient little
play
And sing their singular little song,
Ere they are rushed away

Into the antient, undisclosing Night;
And none is left to tell of the
clear eyes
That filled them with God's grace,
And turned the iron
skies to skies of gold!
None; but the sweetest She herself grows old--

Grows old, and dies;
And, but for such a lovely snatch of hair
As
this, none--none could guess, or know
That She was kind and fair,

And he had nights and days beyond compare--

How many dusty and
silent years ago!
XXV

This is the moon of roses,
The lovely and flowerful time;
And, as white roses climb the wall,
Your dreams about me climb.
This is the moon of roses,
Glad and golden and blue;
And, as red roses drink of the sun,
My dreams they drink of you.
This is the moon of roses!
The cherishing South-West blows,
And life, dear heart, for me and
you,
O, life's a rejoicing rose.
XXVI
June, and a warm, sweet rain;
June, and the call of a bird:
To a lover in pain
What lovelier word?
Two of each other fain
Happily heart on heart:
So in the wind and rain
Spring bears his part!
O, to be heart on heart
One with the warm June rain,
God with us from the start,
And no more pain!

XXVII
It was a bowl of roses:
There in the light they lay,
Languishing, glorying, glowing
Their life away.
And the soul of them rose like a presence,
Into me crept and grew,
And filled me with something--some one--
O, was it you?
XXVIII
Your feet as glad
And light as a dove's homing wings, you came--

Came with your sweets to fill my hands,
My sense with your
perfume.
We closed with lips
Grown weary and fain with longing from afar,

The while your grave, enamoured eyes
Drank down the dream in
mine.
Till the great need
So lovely and so instant grew, it seemed
The
embodied Spirit of the Spring
Hung at me, heart on heart.
XXIX
A world of leafage murmurous and a-twinkle;
The green, delicious
plenitude of June;
Love and laughter and song
The blue day long

Going to the same glad, golden tune--
The same glad tune!
Clouds on the dim, delighting skies a-sprinkle;
Poplars black in the
wake of a setting moon;
Love and languor and sleep
And the
star-sown deep
Going to the same good, golden tune--
The same
good tune!

XXX
I send you roses--red, like love,
And white, like death, sweet friend:
Born in your bosom to rejoice,
Languish, and droop, and end.
If the white roses tell of death,
Let the red roses mend
The talk with true stories of love
Unchanging till the end.
Red and white