The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems | Page 4

thee sweet,
And all things
that live, and are part of thee!
Light, light as a cloud
Swimming, and trailing its shadow under me
I float in the deep
As a bird-dream in sleep,
And hear the wind
murmuring loud,
Far down, where the tree-tops are bowed,--
And I
see where the secret place of the thunders be
Oh! the sky free and wide,
With all the cloud-banners flung out in it
Its singing wind blows
As a grand river flows,
And I swim down its
rhythmical tide,
And still the horizon spreads wide,
With the birds'
and the poets' songs like a shout in it!
Oh life, thou art sweet
Sweet--sweet to the inmost heart of thee!
I drink with my eyes
Thy limitless skies,
And I feel with the
rapturous beat
Of my wings thou art sweet--
And I,--I am alive, and
a part of thee!
AN IDYL OF THE MAY.
In the beautiful May weather,
Lapsing soon into June;
On a golden, golden day
Of the green and
golden May,
When our hearts were beating tune
To the coming feet
of June,
Walked we in the woods together.
Silver fine
Gleamed the ash buds through the darkness
of the pine,

And the waters of the stream
Glance and gleam,
Like a
silver-footed dream--
Beckoning, calling,
Flashing, falling,
Into
shadows dun and brown
Slipping down,
Calling still--Oh hear! Oh
follow!
Follow--follow!
Down through glen and ferny hollow,
Lit
with patches of the sky,

Shining through the trees so high,
Hand in

hand we went together,
In the golden, golden weather
Of the May;
While the fleet wing of the swallow
Flashing by,
called--follow--follow!
And we followed through the day:
Speaking
low--
Speaking often not at all
To the brooklet's crystal call,
With
our lingering feet and slow--
Slow, and pausing here and there
For a
flower, or a fern,
For the lovely maiden-hair;
Hearing voices in the
air,
Calling faintly down the burn.
Still the streamlet slid away,
Singing, smiling, dimpling down
To a
mossy nook and brown,
Under bending boughs of May;
Where the
nodding wind-flower grows,
And the coolwort's lovely pink,

Brooding o'er the brooklet's brink
Dips and blushes like a rose.
And the faint smell of the mould.
Sweeter than the musky scent
Of
the garden's manifold
Perfumes into perfect blent.
Lights and
sounds and odours stole,
In the golden, golden weather--
Heart and
thought, and life and soul,
Stole away,
In that merry, merry May,
Wandering down the burn
together.
Ah Valentine--my Valentine!
Heard I, with my hand in thine,
Grave
and low, and sweet and slow,
As the wood bird over head,

Brooding notes, half sung half said,--
"In the world so bleak and wide,

Hearts make Edens of their own;
Wilt thou linger by my side,--

Wilt thou live for me alone,
Making bright the winter weather,

Thou and I and love together?"
"Yea," I said, "for thee alone,"--
Shading eyes lest they confess
Too
much their own happiness,

With the happy tears o'erflown.
Gravely thou--"The world is not
Like this ferny hollow--
Through a
rougher, thornier lot
Wilt thou bravely follow?"
Still the brook,
with softer flow,
Called, "Oh hear! Oh follow!"
"Aye," I said, with

bated breath,
"Where thou goest, I will go;
Holding still thy
stronger hand,
Through the dreariest desert land,
True, till death."
Silence fell between us two,
Noiseless as the silver dew;
Hearts that
had no need of speech
In the silence spoke to each;
And along the
sapphire blue,
Shot with shafts of sunset through,
Fell a voice, a
bodiless breath--
"True, till death"
Through a mist of smiles and tears,
Doubts and fears, and toils and
dreams,
Oh! how long ago it seems,
Looking back across the year

Silver threads are in my hair
And the sunset shadows slope
Back
along the hills of hope
That before us shone so fair.
Ah! for us the merry May
Comes no more with golden weather;

Fields, and woods, and sunshine gay,
Purple skies, and purple heather.

We have had our holyday,
And I sit with folded hands,
In the
twilight looking back
Over life's uneven track--
Thorny wilds, and
desert sands.
Weary heart, unwearied faith,
In the twilight softly saith--
"We
have had our golden weather--
We have walked through life together,
True, till death!"
THE BURIAL OF THE SCOUT.
O not with arms reversed,
And the slow beating of the muffled drum,

And funeral marches, bring our hero home
These stormy woods
where his young heart was nursed
Ring with a trumpet burst
Of jubilant music, as if he who lies
With shrouded face, and lips all white and dumb
Were a crowned
conqueror entering paradise,--
This is his welcome home!

Along the reedy marge of the dim lake,
I hear the gathering horsemen of the North,
The cavalry of night and
tempest wake,--
Blowing keen bugles as they issue forth,
To guard his homeward
march in frost and cold,
A thousand spearmen bold!
And the deep-bosomed woods,
With their dishevelled locks all wildly
spread,
Stretch ghostly arms to clasp the immortal dead,
Back to their solitudes
While through their rocking branches
overhead,
And all their shuddering pulses underground
shiver runs, as if a voice
had said--
And every farthest leaf had felt the wound--
He comes--but he is dead!
The dainty-fingered May
with gentle hand shall fold and put away
The snow-white curtains of his winter tent,
and spread above him her
green coverlet,
'Broidered with daisies, sweet to sight and scent
and Summer, from
her outposts in the hills,
Under the boughs