Rose and Roof-Tree | Page 6

next day:?Ne'er could I see her as of old again.?That strange mood seemed to draw a cloud away,?And let her beauty pour through every vein?Sunlight and life, part of me. Thus the lover?With each new morn a new world may discover.
VI.
WEDDING-NIGHT.
At night, with shaded eyes, the summer moon?In tender meditation downward glances?At the dark earth, far-set in dim expanses,?And, welcomer than blazoned gold of noon,?Down through the air her steady lights are strewn.?The breezy forests sigh in moonlit trances,?And the full-hearted poet, waking, fancies?The smiling hills will break in laughter soon.
Oh thus, thou gentle Nature, dost thou shine?On me to-night. My very limbs would melt,?Like rugged earth beneath yon ray divine,?Into faint semblance of what they have felt:?Thine eye doth color me, O wife, O mine,?With peace that in thy spirit long hath dwelt!
LOVE'S DEFEAT.
A thousand times I would have hoped,?A thousand times protested;?But still, as through the night I groped,?My torch from me was wrested,
and wrested.
How often with a succoring cup?Unto the hurt I hasted!?The wounded died ere I came up;?My cup was still untasted,--
Untasted.
Of darkness, wounds, and harsh disdain?Endured, I ne'er repented.?'T is not of these I would complain:?With these I were contented,--
Contented.
Here lies the misery, to feel?No work of love completed;?In prayerless passion still to kneel,?And mourn, and cry: "Defeated
Defeated!"
MAY AND MARRIAGE.
THE LOVER WHO THINKS.
Dost thou remember, Love, those hours?Shot o'er with random rainy showers,?When the bold sun would woo coy May??She smiled, then wept--and looked another way.
We, learning from the sun and season,?Together plotted joyous treason?'Gainst maiden majesty, to give?Each other troth, and henceforth wedded live.
But love, ah, love we know is blind!?Not always what they seek they find?When, groping through dim-lighted natures,?Fond lovers look for old, ideal statures.
What then? Is all our purpose lost??The balance broken, since Fate tossed?Uneven weights? Oh well beware?That thought, my sweet: 't were neither fit nor fair!
Seek not for any grafted fruits?From souls so wedded at the roots;?But whatsoe'er our fibres hold,?Let that grow forth in mutual, ample mold!
No sap can circle without flaw?Into the perfect sphere we saw?Hanging before our happy eyes?Amid the shade of marriage-mysteries;
But all that in the heart doth lurk?Must toward the mystic shaping work:?Sweet fruit and bitter both must fall?When the boughs bend, at each year's autumn-call.
Ah, dear defect! that aye shall lift?Us higher, not through craven shift?Of fault on common frailty;--nay,?But twofold hope to help with generous stay!
I shall be nearer, understood:?More prized art thou than perfect good.?And since thou lov'st me, I shall grow?Thy other self--thy Life, thy Joy, thy Woe!
THE FISHER OF THE CAPE.
At morn his bark like a bird?Slips lightly oceanward--?Sail feathering smooth o'er the bay?And beak that drinks the wild spray.?In his eyes beams cheerily?A light like the sun's on the sea,?As he watches the waning strand,?Where the foam, like a waving hand?Of one who mutely would tell?Her love, flutters faintly, "Farewell."
But at night, when the winds arise?And pipe to driving skies,?And the moon peers, half afraid,?Through the storm-cloud's ragged shade,?He hears her voice in the blast?That sighs about the mast,?He sees her face in the clouds?As he climbs the whistling shrouds;?And a power nerves his hand,?Shall bring the bark to land.
SAILOR'S SONG.
The sea goes up; the sky comes down.?Oh, can you spy the ancient town,--?The granite hills so hard and gray,?That rib the land behind the bay??O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!?Fair winds, boys: send her home!?O ye ho!
Three years? Is it so long that we?Have lived upon the lonely sea??Oh, often I thought we'd see the town,?When the sea went up, and the sky came down.?O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!?Fair winds, boys: send her home!?O ye ho!
Even the winter winds would rouse?A memory of my father's house;?For round his windows and his door?They made the same deep, mouthless roar.?O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!?Fair winds, boys: send her home!?O ye ho!
And when the summer's breezes beat,?Methought I saw the sunny street?Where stood my Kate. Beneath her hand?She gazed far out, far out from land.?O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!?Fair winds, boys: send her home!?O ye ho!
Farthest away, I oftenest dreamed?That I was with her. Then, it seemed?A single stride the ocean wide?Had bridged, and brought me to her side.?O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!?Fair winds, boys: send her home.?O ye ho!
But though so near we're drawing, now,?'T is farther off----I know not how.?We sail and sail: we see no home.?Would we into the port were come!?O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!?Fair winds, boys: send her home!?O ye ho!
At night, the same stars o'er the mast:?The mast sways round--however fast?We fly--still sways and swings around?One scanty circle's starry bound.?O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!?Fair winds, boys: send her home!?O ye ho!
Ah, many a month those stars have shone,?And many a golden morn has flown,?Since that so solemn, happy morn,?When, I away,