The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems | Page 7

more to hear?Her voice that sang--for I should do her wrong,?Had I the power, to bring her once more near--
Near to the earth, its sorrow or its joy,?To drag her back into the arms of pain?And Love and all the April flowers again?And all her little dreams of heaven destroy.
Have I the heart? Ah! had I but the song,?The nightingale would listen and all things?That talk in waterfalls and trees and strings?Would hush themselves to listen as I sang,?Had I the song.
"WHO WAS IT SWEPT AGAINST MY DOOR"
Who was it swept against my door just now,?With rustling robes like Autumn's--was it thou??Ah! would it were thy gown against my door--?Only thy gown once more.
Sometimes the snow, sometimes the fluttering breath?Of April, as toward May she wandereth,?Make me a moment think that it is thou--?But yet it is not thou!
"FACE IN THE TOMB THAT LIES SO STILL"
Face in the tomb, that lies so still,?May I draw near,?And watch your sleep and love you,?Without word or tear.
You smile, your eyelids flicker;?Shall I tell?How the world goes that lost you??Shall I tell?
Ah! love, lift not your eyelids;?'Tis the same?Old story that we laughed at,--?Still the same.
We knew it, you and I,?We knew it all:?Still is the small the great,?The great the small;
Still the cold lie quenches?The flaming truth,?And still embattled age?Wars against youth.
Yet I believe still in the ever-living God?That fills your grave with perfume,?Writing your name in violets across the sod,?Shielding your holy face from hail and snow;?And, though the withered stay, the lovely go,?No transitory wrong or wrath of things?Shatters the faith--that each slow minute brings
That meadow nearer to us where your feet?Shall flicker near me like white butterflies--?That meadow where immortal lovers meet,?Gazing for ever in immortal eyes.
"I KNOW NOT IN WHAT PLACE"
I know not in what place again I'll meet?The face I love--but there is not a street?In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,?Without my finding you, with those great eyes;?Nor is there any star in all the skies?Can give you shelter from my pitiless love.
RESURRECTION
Is it your face I see, your voice I hear??Your face, your voice, again after these years!?O is your cheek once more against my cheek??And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?
You have come back,--how strange--out of the grave;?Its dreams are in your eyes, and still there clings?Dust of the grave on your vainglorious hair;?And a mysterious rust is on these rings--
The ring we gave each other, that young night?When the moon rose on our betrothal kiss;?When the sun rose upon our wedding day,?How wonderful it was to give you this!
I dreamed you were a bird or a wild flower,?Some changed lovely thing that was not you;?Maybe, I said, she is the morning star,?A radiance unfathomably far--
And now again you are so strangely near!?Your face, your voice, again after these years!?Is it your face I see, your voice I hear,?And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?
"WHEN THE LONG DAY HAS FADED"
When the long day has faded to its end,?The flowers gone, and all the singing done,?And there is no companion left save Death--?Ah! there is one,?Though in her grave she lies this many a year,?Will send a violet made of her blue eyes,?A flowering whisper of her April breath,?Up through the sleeping grass to comfort me,?And in the April rain her tears shall fall.
"HER EYES ARE BLUEBELLS NOW"
Her eyes are bluebells now, her voice a bird,?And the long sighing grass her elegy;?She who a woman was is now a star?In the high heaven shining down on me.
"THE DEAD AROSE"
The dead arose. Long had they dreamed,?Deep in the grass of the still grave,?Of meeting their beloved once more.?They knocked at each familiar door.?They waited eagerly to see?The old loved faces at the door,?They waited for a voice to say?The same old words it said before--?They knocked at each familiar door.?But no one answered to the dead,?No voice of welcome, no kind word!?Only a little flower came out,?And one small elegiac bird.
"THE BLOOM UPON THE GRAPE"
The bloom upon the grape I ask no more,?Nor pampered fragrance of the soft-lipped rose,?I only ask of Him who keeps the Door--?To open it for one who fearless goes?Into the dark, from which, reluctant, came?His innocent heart, a little laughing flame;?I only ask that he who gave me sight,?Who gave me hearing and who gave me breath,?Give me the last gift in His flaming hand--?The holy gift of Death.
THE FRIEND
Through the dark wood?There came to me a friend,?Bringing in his cold hands?Two words--'The End.'
His face was fair?As fading autumn flowers,?And the lost joy?Of unforgotten hours.
His voice was sweet?As rain upon a grave;?'Be brave,' he smiled.?And yet again--'be brave.'
ADORATION
Ah, if you worship anything,?In deepest hush of silence bend?The lone adoring knee,?And only silence bring?Into the sanctuary.?Trust not the fairest word?Your soul to wrong:?Even the Rose's bird?Hath not a