Riley Love-Lyrics | Page 6

sense of nameless dread,
I turned me, from the merry face

Of this newcomer, to my dead;
And, kneeling there a space,
I sobbed aloud, all tearfully:--
By this dear face so fixed and cold,
O
Lord, let not this New Year be
As happy as the old!
THEIR SWEET SORROW
They meet to say farewell: Their way
Of saying this is hard to say.--

He holds her hand an instant, wholly
Distressed--and she unclasps
it slowly.
He bends _his_ gaze evasively
Over the printed page that she

Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder
Glimpsed from the lace-mists
that enfold her.
The clock, beneath its crystal cup,
Discreetly clicks--_"Quick! Act!
Speak up!"_
A tension circles both her slender
Wrists--and her
raised eyes flash in splendor,

Even as he feels his dazzled own.--
Then, blindingly, round either
thrown,
They feel a stress of arms that ever
Strain tremblingly--and
"_Never! Never!_"
Is whispered brokenly, with half
A sob, like a belated laugh,--

While cloyingly their blurred kiss closes,
Sweet as the dew's lip to the
rose's.
[Illustration]
JUDITH
O Her eyes are amber-fine--
Dark and deep as wells of wine,
While
her smile is like the noon
Splendor of a day of June,
If she
sorrow--lo! her face
It is like a flowery space
In bright meadows,
overlaid
With light clouds and lulled with shade.
If she laugh--it is
the trill
Of the wayward whippoorwill
Over upland pastures, heard

Echoed by the mocking-bird
In dim thickets dense with bloom

And blurred cloyings of perfume.
If she sigh--- a zephyr swells

Over odorous asphodels
And wall lilies in lush plots
Of
moon-drown'd forget-me-nots.
Then, the soft touch of her hand--

Takes all breath to understand
What to liken it thereto!--
Never
roseleaf rinsed with dew
Might slip soother-suave than slips
Her
slow palm, the while her lips
Swoon through mine, with kiss on kiss

Sweet as heated honey is.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HE AND I
Just drifting on together--
He and I--
As through the balmy weather

Of July
Drift two thistle-tufts imbedded
Each in each--by zephyrs
wedded--
Touring upward, giddy-headed,
For the sky.
And, veering up and onward,
Do we seem
Forever drifting dawnward
In a dream,
Where we meet song-birds that know us,
And the winds
their kisses blow us,
While the years flow far below us
Like a stream.
And we are happy--very--
He and I--
Aye, even glad and merry
Though on high
The heavens are sometimes shrouded
By the
midnight storm, and clouded
Till the pallid moon is crowded
From the sky.
My spirit ne'er expresses
Any choice
But to clothe him with caresses
And rejoice;
And as he laughs, it is in
Such a tone the moonbeams
glisten
And the stars come out to listen
To his voice.
And so, whate'er the weather,
He and I,--
With our lives linked thus together,
Float and fly
As two thistle-tufts imbedded
Each in each--by

zephyrs wedded--
Touring upward, giddy-headed,
For the sky.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE LOST PATH
Alone they walked--their fingers knit together,
And swaying listlessly as might a swing
Wherein Dan Cupid dangled
in the weather
Of some sun-flooded afternoon of Spring.
Within the clover-fields the tickled cricket
Laughed lightly as they
loitered down the lane,
And from the covert of the hazel-thicket

The squirrel peeped and laughed at them again.
The bumble-bee that tipped the lily-vases
Along the road-side in the
shadows dim,
Went following the blossoms of their faces
As
though their sweets must needs be shared with
him.
Between the pasture bars the wondering cattle
Stared wistfully, and
from their mellow bells
Shook out a welcoming whose dreamy rattle

Fell swooningly away in faint farewells.
And though at last the gloom of night fell o'er them
And folded all
the landscape from their eyes,
They only knew the dusky path before
them
Was leading safely on to Paradise.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

MY BRIDE THAT IS TO BE
O soul of mine, look out and see
My bride, my bride that is to be!
Reach out with mad, impatient
hands,
And draw aside futurity
As one might draw a veil aside--

And so unveil her where she stands
Madonna-like and glorified--

The queen of undiscovered lands
Of love, to where she beckons me--

My bride--my bride that is to be.
The shadow of a willow-tree
That wavers on a garden-wall
In
summertime may never fall
In attitude as gracefully
As my fair
bride that is to be;--
Nor ever Autumn's leaves of brown
As lightly
flutter to the lawn
As fall her fairy-feet upon
The path of love she
loiters down.--
O'er drops of dew she walks, and yet
Not one may
stain her sandal wet--
Aye, she might _dance_ upon the way
Nor
crush a single drop to spray,
So airy-like she seems to me,--
My
bride, my bride that is to be.
I know not if her eyes are light
As summer skies or dark as night,--

I only know that they are dim
With mystery: In vain I peer
To make
their hidden meaning clear,
While o'er their surface, like a tear
That
ripples to the silken brim,
A look of longing seems to swim
[Illustration]
All worn and wearylike to me;
And then, as suddenly, my sight
Is
blinded with a smile so bright,
Through folded lids I still may see

My bride, my bride that is to be.
Her face is like a night of June
Upon whose brow the crescent-moon

Hangs pendant in a diadem
Of stars, with envy lighting them.--

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