Ride to the Lady | Page 9

as well might look
To detain the racing brook
With
regrets and grievance tender,
As my comrade swift and slender,
Shy,
capricious, all of spring!
Catch the wind with blossoms laden,

Catch the wild bird on the wing,
Catch the heart of boy or maiden!
Yet I'll hold your image fast,
As this hour I saw you last,--
As with
staff in hand you sat,
Soft curls putting forth defiant
From the tilted
Mercury's hat,
Wreathen with the wilding grace
Of the fresh-leaved
vine and pliant,
Stealing down to see your face.
Eyes of pleasance,
lips of laughter,
I shall hoard you long hereafter;
Very dear shall be
the days
Ere the parting of the ways!
Shall you deem them dear, in truth,
Days when we, o'er hill and
hollow,
Trudged together, Comrade Youth?
Ah, you dream of days
to follow!
Hand in hand we jogged along;
I would fetch from out
my scrip,
Crust or jest or antique song,--
Live and lovely, on your
lip,
Such poor needments as I had
Were as yours; you made me
glad.
--Lo, the dial! No prayer stays
Time, at parting of the ways!
This gold memory--rings it true?
Half for me and half for you.

Cleave and share it. Now, good sooth,
God be with you, Comrade
Youth!
THE FAIR GRAY LADY
When the charm at last is fled

From the woodland stark and pale,

And like shades of glad hours dead
Whirl the leaves before the gale:
When against the western fire
Darkens many an empty nest,
Like a
thwarted heart's desire
That in prime was hardly guessed:

Then the fair gray Lady leans,
Lingering, o'er the faded grass,
Still
the soul of all the scenes
Once she graced, a golden lass.
O'er the Year's discrownèd sleep,
Dear as in her earlier day,
She her
bending watch doth keep,
She the Goldenrod grown gray.
THE ENCOUNTER
There's a wood-way winding high,
Roofed far up with light-green
flicker,
Save one midmost star of sky.
Underfoot 'tis all pale brown

With the dead leaves matted down
One on other, thick and thicker;

Soft, but springing to the tread.
There a youth late met a maid

Running lightly,--oh, so fleetly!
"Whence art thou?" the herd-boy
said.
Either side her long hair swayed,
Half a tress and half a braid,

Colored like the soft dead leaf,
As she answered, laughing sweetly,

On she ran, as flies the swallow;
He could not choose but follow

Though it had been to his grief.
"I have come up from the valley,--
From the valley!" Once he caught
her,
Swerving down a sidelong alley,
For a moment, by the hand.

"Tell me, tell me," he besought her,
"Sweetest, I would understand

Why so cold thy palm, that slips
From me like the shy cold minnow?

The wood is warm, and smells of fern,
And below the meadows
burn.
Hard to catch and hard to win, oh!
Why are those brown
finger tips
Crinkled as with lines of water?"
Laughing while she featly footed,
With the herd-boy hasting after,

Sprang she on a trunk uprooted,
Clung she by a roping vine;

Leaped behind a birch, and told,
Still eluding, through its fine,

Mocking, slender, leafy laughter,
Why her finger tips were cold:
"I went down to tease the brook,
With her fishes, there below;
She
comes dancing, thou must know,
And the bushes arch above her;

But the seeking sunbeams look,
Dodging through the wind-blown

cover,
Find and kiss her into stars.
Silvery veins entwine and crook

Where a stone her tripping bars;
There be smooth, clear sweeps,
and swirls
Bubbling up crisp drops like pearls.
There I lie, along the
rocks
Thick with greenest slippery moss,
And I have in hand a strip

Of gray, pliant, dappled bark;
And I comb her liquid locks
Till
her tangling currents cross;
And I have delight to hark
To the
chiding of her lip,
Taking on the talking stone
With each turn
another tone.
Oh, to set her wavelets bickering!
Oh, to hear her
laughter simple,
See her fret and flash and dimple!
Ha, ha, ha!" The
woodland rang
With the rippling through the flickering.
At the
birch the herd-boy sprang.
On a sudden something wound
Vine-like round his throbbing throat;

On a sudden something smote
Sharply on his longing lips,
Stung
him as the birch bough whips:
Was it kiss or was it blow?
Never
after could he know;
She was gone without a sound.
Never after could he see
In the wood or in the mead,
Or in any
company
Of the rustic mortal maids,
Her with acorn-colored braids;

Never came she to his need.
Never more the lad was merry,

Strayed apart, and learned to dream,
Feeding on the tart wild berry;

Murmuring words none understood,--
Words with music of the wood,

And with music of the stream.
SUMMER HOURS
Hours aimless-drifting as the milkweed's down
In seeming, still a
seed of joy ye bear
That steals into the soul when unaware,

And
springs up Memory in the stony town.
LOVE UNSUNG
Seven jewelled rays has the Sun fast bound
In his arrow of blinding sheen;
But he quickens the breast of the

fruitful ground
With a subtlest ray unseen.
And the rainbow moods of this love of ours
I may blend in the song I bring;
But the magic that makes life laugh
with flowers
Is the love that I cannot sing.
THE WISH FOR A CHAPLET
Vineleaf and rose I would my chaplet make:
I would my word were
wine for all men's sake.
Pure from the pressing of the