The Old Player
THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud
The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.
In flaming line the telltales of the stage
Showed on his brow the autograph of age;
Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair,
And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care;
Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,--
He strove to speak,--his voice was but a sigh.
Year after year had seen its short-lived race
Flit past the scenes and others take their place;
Yet the old prompter watched his accents still,
His name still flaunted on the evening's bill.
Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor,
Had died in earnest and were heard no more;
Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread
They faced the footlights in unborrowed red,
Had faded slowly through successive shades
To gray duennas, foils of younger maids;
Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start
With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart,
While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky
With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry.
Yet there he stood,--the man of other days,
In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze,
As on the oak a faded leaf that clings
While a new April spreads its burnished wings.
How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier,
Their central sun the flashing chandelier!
How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim
Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim
How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold!
Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told.
No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue;
Again, again, the crashing galleries rung.
As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast
Hears in its strain the echoes of the past,
So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round,
A life of memories startled at the sound.
He lived again,--the page of earliest days,--
Days of small fee and parsimonious praise;
Then lithe young Romeo--hark that silvered tone,
From those smooth lips--alas! they were his own.
Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe,
Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow;
And dark--plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade,
Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade.
All in one flash, his youthful memories came,
Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame,
As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream,
While the last bubble rises through the stream.
Call him not old, whose visionary brain
Holds o'er the past its undivided reign.
For him in vain the envious seasons roll
Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay,
Spring with her birds, or children at their play,
Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art,
Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart,
Turn to the record where his years are told,--
Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old!
What magic power has changed the faded mime?
One breath of memory on the dust of time.
As the last window in the buttressed wall
Of some gray minster tottering to its fall,
Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread,
A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red,
Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows
When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows,
And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane
See angels glow in every shapeless stain;
So streamed the vision through his sunken eye,
Clad in the splendors of his morning sky.
All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew,
All the young fancies riper years proved true,
The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance
From queens of song, from Houris of the dance,
Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase,
And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise,
And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears,
Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers,
Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue,
And all that poets dream, but leave unsung!
In every heart some viewless founts are fed
From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed;
On the worn features of the weariest face
Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace,
As in old gardens left by exiled kings
The marble basins tell of hidden springs,
But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds,
Their choking jets the passer little heeds,
Till time's revenges break their seals away,
And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play.
Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall
The world's a stage, and we are players all.
A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns,
And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns,
Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts,
As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts.
The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay
Is twice an actor in a twofold play.
We smile at children when a painted screen
Seems to their simple eyes a real scene;
Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne
To seek the cheerless home he calls his own,
Which of his double lives most real seems,
The world of solid fact or scenic dreams?
Canvas, or clouds,--the footlights, or the spheres,--
The play of two short hours, or seventy years?
Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes,
Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies;
Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this;
The cheating future lends the present's bliss;
Life is a running shade, with fettered hands,
That chases phantoms over shifting sands;
Death a still spectre on a marble seat,
With ever clutching palms and shackled feet;
The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain,
The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain,
Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,--
Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Even So
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Days go by
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
. . . . .
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley
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A Living Picture
No, I'll not say your name. I have said it now,
As you mine, first in childish treble, then
Up through a score and more familiar years
Till baby-voices mock us. Time may come
When your tall sons look down on our white hair,
Amused to hear us call each other thus,
And question us about the old, old days,
The far-off days, the days when we were young.
How distant do they seem, and yet how near!
Now, as I lie and watch you come and go,
With garden basket in your hand; in gown
Just girdled, and brown curls that girl-like fall,
And straw hat flapping in the April breeze,
I could forget this lapse of years--start up
Laughing--'Come, let's go play!'
Well-a-day, friend,
Our play-days are all done.
Still, let us smile:
For as you flit about your garden here
You look like this spring morning: on your lips
An unseen bird sings snatches of gay tunes,
While, an embodied music, moves your step,
Your free, wild, springy step, like Atala's,
Or Pocahontas, careless child o' the sun--
Those Indian beauties I compare you to--
I, still your praiser,--
Nay, nay, I'll not praise,
Fair seemeth fairest, ignorant 't is fair:
That light incredulous laugh is worth a world!
That laugh, with childish echoes.
So then, fade,
Mere dream. Come, true and sweet reality:
Come, dawn of happy wifehood, motherhood,
Ripening to perfect noon! Come, peaceful round
Of simple joys, fond duties, gladsome cares,
When each full hour drops bliss with liberal hand,
Yet leaves to-morrow richer than to-day.
Will you sit here? the grass is summer-warm.
Look at those children making daisy-chains,
So did we too, do you mind? That eldest lad,
He has your very mouth. Yet, you will have 't
His eyes are like his father's? Perhaps so:
They could not be more dark and deep and kind.
Do you know, this hour I have been fancying you
A poet's dream, and almost sighed to think
There was no poet to praise you--
Why, you're flown
After those mad elves in the flower-beds there,
Ha--ha--you're no dream now.
Well, well--so best!
My eyelids droop content o'er moistened eyes:
I would not have you other than you are.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Old Times
Friend of my youth, let us talk of old times;
Of the long lost golden hours.
When "Winter" meant only Christmas chimes,
And "Summer" wreaths of flowers.
Life has grown old, and cold, my friend,
And the winter now, means death.
And summer blossoms speak all too plain
Of the dear, dead forms beneath.
But let us talk of the past to-night;
And live it over again,
We will put the long years out of sight,
And dream we are young as then.
But you must not look at me, my friend,
And I must not look at you,
Or the furrowed brows, and silvered locks,
Will prove our dream untrue.
Let us sing of the summer, too sweet to last,
And yet too sweet to die.
Let us read tales, from the book of the past,
And talk of the days gone by.
We will turn our backs to the West, my friend,
And forget we are growing old.
The skies of the Present are dull, and gray,
But the Past's are blue, and gold.
The sun has passed over the noontide line
And is sinking down the West.
And of friends we knew in days Lang Syne,
Full half have gone to rest.
And the few that are left on earth, my friend
Are scattered far, and wide.
But you and I will talk of the days
Ere any roamed, or died.
Auburn ringlets, and hazel eyes
Blue eyes and tresses of gold.
Winds joy laden, and azure skies,
Belong to those days of old.
We will leave the Present's shores awhile
And float on the Past's smooth sea.
But I must not look at you, my friend,
And you must not look at me.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Mater Dolorosa
Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?
She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,
Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.
This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,
Earth groans in the blackness of darkness, and men's hearts break.
This is she for whose love, having seen her, the men that were
Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.
This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;
Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.
Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,
To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?
She is grey with the dust of time on his manifold ways,
Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year-long days.
Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,
Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?
We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,
That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.
We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,
A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,
And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;
And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.
Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?
Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;
She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.
Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,
If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?
Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,
Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,
And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;
But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?
It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;
There was fire in their hearts, and the hunger of fight in their
hands.
Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame,
For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.
But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,
Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.
Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,
O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?
Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope,
Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?
Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done;
Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.
What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,
When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?
If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?
Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep?
But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;
And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.
Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,
And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?
And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,
Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.
In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,
And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Memories
A beautiful and happy girl,
With step as light as summer air,
Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,
Shadowed by many a careless curl
Of unconfined and flowing hair;
A seeming child in everything,
Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,
As Nature wears the smile of Spring
When sinking into Summer's arms.
A mind rejoicing in the light
Which melted through its graceful bower,
Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright,
And stainless in its holy white,
Unfolding like a morning flower
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,
With every breath of feeling woke,
And, even when the tongue was mute,
From eye and lip in music spoke.
How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory, at the thought of thee!
Old hopes which long in dust have lain
Old dreams, come thronging back again,
And boyhood lives again in me;
I feel its glow upon my cheek,
Its fulness of the heart is mine,
As when I leaned to hear thee speak,
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.
I hear again thy low replies,
I feel thy arm within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringed lids of hazel eyes,
With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
Of moonlit wave and willowy way,
Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,
And smiles and tones more dear than they!
Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled
My picture of thy youth to see,
When, half a woman, half a child,
Thy very artlessness beguiled,
And folly's self seemed wise in thee;
I too can smile, when o'er that hour
The lights of memory backward stream,
Yet feel the while that manhood's power
Is vainer than my boyhood's dream.
Years have passed on, and left their trace,
Of graver care and deeper thought;
And unto me the calm, cold face
Of manhood, and to thee the grace
Of woman's pensive beauty brought.
More wide, perchance, for blame than praise,
The school-boy's humble name has flown;
Thine, in the green and quiet ways
Of unobtrusive goodness known.
And wider yet in thought and deed
Diverge our pathways, one in youth;
Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,
While answers to my spirit's need
The Derby dalesman's simple truth.
For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,
And holy day, and solemn psalm;
For me, the silent reverence where
My brethren gather, slow and calm.
Yet hath thy spirit left on me
An impress Time has worn not out,
And something of myself in thee,
A shadow from the past, I see,
Lingering, even yet, thy way about;
Not wholly can the heart unlearn
That lesson of its better hours,
Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn
To common dust that path of flowers.
Thus, while at times before our eyes
The shadows melt, and fall apart,
And, smiling through them, round us lies
The warm light of our morning skies,--
The Indian Summer of the heart!
In secret sympathies of mind,
In founts of feeling which retain
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find
Our early dreams not wholly vain
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Captive's Dream
Methought I saw him but I knew him not;
He was so changed from what he used to be,
There was no redness on his woe-worn cheek,
No sunny smile upon his ashy lips,
His hollow wandering eyes looked wild and fierce,
And grief was printed on his marble brow,
And O I thought he clasped his wasted hands,
And raised his haggard eyes to Heaven, and prayed
That he might die - I had no power to speak,
I thought I was allowed to see him thus;
And yet I might not speak one single word;
I might not even tell him that I lived
And that it might be possible if search were made,
To find out where I was and set me free,
O how I longed to clasp him to my heart,
Or but to hold his trembling hand in mine,
And speak one word of comfort to his mind,
I struggled wildly but it was in vain,
I could not rise from my dark dungeon floor,
And the dear name I vainly strove to speak,
Died in a voiceless whisper on my tongue,
Then I awoke, and lo it was a dream!
A dream? Alas it was reality!
For well I know wherever he may be
He mourns me thus - O heaven I could bear
My deadly fate with calmness if there were
No kindred hearts to bleed and break for me!
poem by Anne Brontë
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The Only Daughter. Illustration of a Picture
They bid me strike the idle strings,
As if my summer days
Had shaken sunbeams from their wings
To warm my autumn lays;
They bring to me their painted urn,
As if it were not time
To lift my gauntlet and to spurn
The lists of boyish rhyme;
And were it not that I have still
Some weakness in my heart
That clings around my stronger will
And pleads for gentler art,
Perchance I had not turned away
The thoughts grown tame with toil,
To cheat this lone and pallid ray,
That wastes the midnight oil.
Alas! with every year I feel
Some roses leave my brow;
Too young for wisdom’s tardy seal,
Too old for garlands now.
Yet, while the dewy breath of spring
Steals o’er the tingling air,
And spreads and fans each emerald wing
The forest soon shall wear.
How bright the opening year would seem,
Had I one look like thine
To meet me when the morning beam
Unseals these lids of mine!
Too long I bear this lonely lot,
That bids my heart run wild
To press the lips that love me not,
To clasp the stranger’s child.
How oft beyond the dashing seas,
Amidst those royal bowers,
Where danced the lilacs in the breeze,
And swung the chestnut-flowers,
I wandered like a wearied slave
Whose morning task is done,
To watch the little hands that gave
Their whiteness to the sun;
To revel in the bright young eyes,
Whose lustre sparkled through
The sable fringe of Southern skies
Or gleamed in Saxon blue!
How oft I heard another’s name
Called in some truant’s tone;
Sweet accents! which I longed to claim,
To learn and lisp my own!
Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed
The ringlets of the child,
Are folded on the faithful breast
Where first he breathed and smiled;
Too oft the clinging arms untwine,
The melting lips forget,
And darkness veils the bridal shrine
Where wreaths and torches met;
If Heaven but leaves a single thread
Of Hope’s dissolving chain,
Even when her parting plumes are spread,
It bids them fold again;
The cradle rocks beside the tomb;
The cheek now changed and chill
Smiles on us in the morning bloom
Of one that loves us still.
Sweet image! I have done thee wrong
To claim this destined lay;
The leaf that asked an idle song
Must bear my tears away.
Yet, in thy memory shouldst thou keep
This else forgotten strain,
Till years have taught thine eyes to weep,
And flattery’s voice is vain;
Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest,
Like the long-wandering dove,
Thy weary heart may faint for rest,
As mine, on changeless love;
And while these sculptured lines retrace
The hours now dancing by,
This vision of thy girlish grace
May cost thee, too, a sigh.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Love's Young Dream
Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love.
New hope may bloom,
And days may come,
Of milder calmer beam,
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream:
No, there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.
Though the bard to purer fame may soar,
When wild youth's past;
Though he win the wise, who frown'd before,
To smile at last;
He'll never meet
A joy so sweet,
In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman's ear
His soul-felt flame,
And, at every close, she blush'd to hear
The one loved name.
No, -- that hallow'd form is ne'er forgot
Which first love traced;
Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
On memory's waste.
'Twas odour fled
As soon as shed;
'Twas morning's winged dream;
'Twas a light, tht ne'er can shine again
On life's dull stream:
Oh! 'twas light that n'er can shine again
On life's dull stream.
poem by Thomas Moore
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A Lament
The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken,
One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken;
One heart from among us no longer shall thrill
With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill.
Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering now
The light of her glances, the pride of her brow;
Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vain
To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.
Give our tears to the dead! For humanity's claim
From its silence and darkness is ever the same;
The hope of that world whose existence is bliss
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.
For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw
On the scene of its troubled probation below,
Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead,
To that glance will be dearer the tears which we shed.
Oh, who can forget the mild light of her smile,
Over lips moved with music and feeling the while,
The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream-like, and clear,
In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its tear.
And the charm of her features, while over the whole
Played the hues of the heart and the sunshine of soul;
And the tones of her voice, like the music which seems
Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of dreams!
But holier and dearer our memories hold
Those treasures of feeling, more precious than gold,
The love and the kindness and pity which gave
Fresh flowers for the bridal, green wreaths for the grave!
The heart ever open to Charity's claim,
Unmoved from its purpose by censure and blame,
While vainly alike on her eye and her ear
Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and jeer.
How true to our hearts was that beautiful sleeper
With smiles for the joyful, with tears for the weeper,
Yet, evermore prompt, whether mournful or gay,
With warnings in love to the passing astray.
For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow for them
Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem;
And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove,
And the sting of reproof was still tempered by love.
As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in heaven,
As a star that is lost when the daylight is given,
As a glad dream of slumber, which wakens in bliss,
She hath passed to the world of the holy from this.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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At the Opera
THE CURTAIN rose—the play began—
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze.
Long lark-notes clear the first act close,
So the soprano: then a hush—
The tenor, tender as a thrush;
Then loud and high the chorus rose,
Till, with a sudden rush and strong,
It ended in a storm of song.
The curtain fell—the music died—
The lights grew bright, revealing there
The flash of jewelled fingers fair,
And wreaths of pearls on brows of pride;
Then, with a quick-flushed cheek, I turned,
And into mine her dark eyes burned.
Such eyes but once a man may see,
And, seeing once, his fancy dies
To thought of any other eyes:
So shadow-soft, they seemed to be
Twin haunted lakes, lit by the gleams
Of a mysterious moon of dreams.
Silk lashes veiled their liquid light
With such a shade as tall reeds fling
From the lake-marge at sunsetting:
Their darkness might have hid the night—
Yet whoso saw their glance would say
Night dreamt therein, and saw the day.
Long looked I at them, wondering
What tender memories were hid
Beneath each blue-veined lily-lid;
What hopes of joys the years would bring;
What griefs? In vain: I might not guess
The secret of their silentness.
What of her face? Her face, meseems,
Was such as painters see who muse
By moonlight in dim avenues,
Yet cannot paint; or as in dreams,
Young poets see, but, when they try
To limn in verse are dumb—so I.
Yet well I know that I have seen
That sweet face in the long ago
In a rose-bower—well I know—
Laughing the singing leaves between,
In that strange land of rose and rhyme—
The land of Once upon a Time.
O unknown sweet, so sweetly known,
I know not what your name may be—
Madonna is your name for me—
Nor where your lines in life are thrown;
But soul sees soul—what is the rest?
A passing phantom at the best.
Did your young bosom never glow
To love? or burns your heart beneath
As burns the rosebud in its sheath?
I neither know nor wish to know:
I smell the rose upon the tree;
Who will may pluck and wear, for me—
May wear the rose, and watch it die,
And, leaf by red leaf, fade and fall,
Till there be nothing left at all
Of its sweet loveliness; but I
Love it so well, I leave it free—
The scent alone I take with me!
As one who visits sacred spots
Brings tokens back, so I from you
A glance, a smile, a rapture new!
And these are my forget-me-nots!
I take from you but only these—
Give all the rest to whom you please.
Sweet eyes, your glance a light shall cast
On me, when dreaded ghosts arise
Of dead regrets with shrouded eyes,
And phantoms of the perished past,
Old thoughts, old hopes, and old desire
Gather around my lonely fire!
Farewell! In rhyme, I kiss your hand—
Kiss not unsweet, although unheard!—
This is our secret—say no word—
That I have been in Fairyland,
And seen for one brief moment’s space
The Queen Titania face to face.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Reply Of The Fountain
HOW deep within each human heart,
A thousand treasured feelings lie;
Things precious, delicate, apart,
Too sensitive for human eye.
Our purest feelings, and our best,
Yet shrinking from the common view;
Rarely except in song exprest,
And yet how tender, and how true!
They wake, and know their power, when eve
Flings on the west its transient glow;
Yet long dark shadows dimly weave
A gloom round some green path below.
Who dreams not then—the young dream on—
Life traced at hope's delicious will;
And those whose youth of heart is gone,
Perhaps have visions dearer still.
They rise, too, when expected least,
When gay yourself, amid the gay,
The heart from revelry hath ceased
To muse o'er hours long past away.
And who can think upon the past
And not weep o'er it as a grave?
How many leaves life's wreath has cast!
What lights have sunk beneath the wave!
But most these deep emotions rise
When, drooping o'er our thoughts alone,
Our former dearest sympathies
Come back, and claim us for their own.
Such mood is on the maiden's mind
Who bends o'er yon clear fount her brow;
Long years, that leave their trace behind,
Long years, are present with her now.
Yet, once before she asked a sign
From that wild fountain's plaintive song;
And silvery, with the soft moonshine,
Those singing waters past along.
It was an hour of beauty, made
For the young heart's impassioned mood,
For love of its sweet self afraid,
For hope that colours solitude.
'Alas,' the maiden sighed, 'since first
I said, Oh fountain, read my doom;
What vainest fancies have I nurst,
Of which I am myself the tomb!
'The love was checked—the hope was vain,
I deemed that I could feel no more;
Why, false one, did we meet again,
To show thine influence was not o'er?
'I thought that I could never weep
Again, as I had wept for thee,
That love was buried cold and deep,
That pride and scorn kept watch by me.
'My early hopes, my early tears
Were now almost forgotten things,
And other cares, and other years
Had brought what all experience brings—
'Indifference, weariness, disdain,
That taught and ready smile which grows
A habit soon—as streams retain
The shape and light in which they froze.
'Again I met that faithless eye,
Again I heard that charmed tongue;
I felt they were my destiny,
I knew again the spell they flung.
'Ah! years have fled, since last his name
Was breathed amid the twilight dim;
It was to dream of him I came,
And now again I dream of him.
'But changed and cold, my soul has been
Too deeply wrung, too long unmoved,
Too hardened in life's troubled scene
To love as I could once have loved.
'Sweet fountain, once I asked thy waves
To whisper hope's enchanted spell;
Now I but ask thy haunted caves
To teach me how to say farewell.'
She leaned her head upon her hand,
She gazed upon that fountain lone
Which wandered by its wild-flower strand
With a low, mournful, ceaseless moan.
It soothed her with a sweet deceit
Of pity, murmured on the breeze;
Ah deep the grief, which seeks to cheat
Itself with fantasies like these.
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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The Last Blossom
THOUGH young no more, we still would dream
Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;
The leagues of life to graybeards seem
Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.
Who knows a woman's wild caprice?
'It played with Goethe's silvered hair,
And many a Holy Father's 'niece'
Has softly smoothed the papal chair.
When sixty bids us sigh in vain
To melt the heart of sweet sixteen,
We think upon those ladies twain
Who loved so well the tough old Dean.
We see the Patriarch's wintry face,
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow,
And dream that Youth and Age embrace,
As April violets fill with snow.
Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile
His lotus-loving Memphian lies,--
The musky daughter of the Nile,
With plaited hair and almond eyes.
Might we but share one wild caress
Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall,
And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress
The long cold kiss that waits us all!
My bosom heaves, remembering yet
The morning of that blissful day,
When Rose, the flower of spring, I met,
And gave my raptured soul away.
Flung from her eyes of purest blue,
A lasso, with its leaping chain,
Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew
O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain.
Thou com'st to cheer my waning age,
Sweet vision, waited for so long!
Dove that would seek the poet's cage
Lured by the magic breath of song!
She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid,
Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told!
O' er girlhood's yielding barricade
Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold!
Come to my arms!--love heeds not years;
No frost the bud of passion knows.
Ha! what is this my frenzy hears?
A voice behind me uttered,--Rose!
Sweet was her smile,--but not for me;
Alas! when woman looks too kind,
Just turn your foolish head and see,--
Some youth is walking close behind!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Pilgrim of Life.
PILGRIM, who toilest up life's weary steep,
To reach the summit still with pleasure crowned;
Born but to sigh and smile; to sin and weep,
Dost mark the busy multitudes around?
Dost mourn, with those who tread with fainting feet,
And blighted worn-out heart, the self same road?
Dost laugh with those who think their travel sweet,
And deem existence no unwelcome load?-
Ah, no! unconscious of their joy or woe,
Quick hurrying onward still, or gazing back,
With feeble lustre round their planet glow
A few beloved, connected with thy track;
Dear links of life, for whom to toil is bliss;
Circlet of stars in young hope's diadem;
Gay lightsome hearts who know no joy but this-
To be together is enough for them.
Thou pausest on thy way-one light is set-
No power of love relumes the torch of life;
Whate'er it was, 'tis lost-and vain regret
Pursues the rosy babe, or faithful wife.
'Tis past-'tis gone-the brightness of those eyes
Can cheer no more thy melancholy home:
But grief may not endure-new joys arise;
The past is not-but thou hast years to come!
New joys arise-eager thou pressest on,
Hope's brilliant mockery deceiving still.
And now thou weepest o'er delusions gone,
Now hail'st with transport days devoid of ill.
Yet ever as thou goest on thy way,
However bright may be the present hour,
Clings to thy mind with brightest, purest ray,
The joy thou could'st not hold, the faded flower-
Still dearest seems the past; and as each light,
Extinguished, leaves thee lone, through memory's tears
More dim the future rises to thy sight,
More bright the visions of thine early years.
Pilgrim of Life! why slackenest thou thy speed?
Why is that brow of eager hope o'ercast?
A pause-a struggle-and the hour decreed
Mingles for aye the present with the past!
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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A Souvenir
YES, lady! I can ne'er forget,
That once in other years we met;
Thy memory may perchance recall
A festal eve, a rose-wreathed hall,
Its tapers' blaze, its mirrors' glance,
Its melting song, its ringing glance;
Why, in thy dream of virgin joy,
Shouldst thou recall a pallid boy?
Thine eye had other forms to seek,
Why rest upon his bashful cheek?
With other tones thy heart was stirred,
Why waste on him a gentle word?
We parted, lady, all night long
Thine ear to thrill with dance and song,
And I to weep that I was born
A thing thou scarce wouldst deign to scorn.
And, lady! now that years have past,
My bark has reached the shore at last;
The gales that filled her ocean wing,
Have chilled and shrunk thy hasty spring,
And eye to eye, and brow to brow,
I stand before thy presence now;
Thy lip is smoothed, thy voice is sweet,
Thy warm hand offered when we meet.
Nay, lady! 't is not now for me
To droop the lid or bend the knee.
I seek thee, oh thou dost not shun;
I speak, thou listenest like a nun;
I ask thy smile, thy lip uncurls,
Too liberal of its flashing pearls ;
Thy tears, thy lashes sing again,
My Hebe turns to Magdalen !
O changing youth ! that evening hour
Looked down on ours, the bud the flower :
Thine faded in its virgin soil.
And mine was nursed in tears and toil;
Thy leaves were withering:, one by one,
While mine were opening to the sun.
Which now can meet the cold and storm,
With freshest leaf and hardiest form ?
Ay, lady ! that once haughty glance
Still wanders through the glittering dance,
She asks in vain from others' pride,
The charity thine own denied ;
And as thy fickle lips could learn
To smile and praise, that used to spurn,
So the last offering on thy shrine
Shall be this flattering lay of mine!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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She Sat Alone Beside Her Hearth
SHE sat alone beside her hearth—
For many nights alone;
She slept not on the pleasant couch
Where fragrant herbs were strewn.
At first she bound her raven hair
With feather and with shell;
But then she hoped; at length, like night,
Around her neck it fell.
They saw her wandering mid the woods,
Lone, with rite cheerless dawn,
And then they said, 'Can this be her
We called 'The Startled Fawn?' '
Her heart was in her large sad eyes,
Half sunshine and half shade;
And love, as love first springs to life,
Of every thing afraid.
The red leaf far more heavily
Fell down to autumn earth,
Than her light feet, which seemed to move
To music and to mirth.
With the light feet of early youth,
What hopes and joys depart,
Ah! nothing like the heavy step
Betrays the heavy heart.
It is a usual history
That Indian girl could tell;
Fate sets apart one common doom
For all who love too well.
The proud—the shy—the sensitive,—
Life has not many such;
They dearly buy their happiness,
By feeling it too much.
A stranger to her forest home,
That fair young stranger came;
They raised for him the funeral song—
For him the funeral flame.
Love sprang from pity,—and her arms
Around his arms she threw;
She told her father, 'If he dies,
Your daughter dieth too.'
For her sweet sake they set him free—
He lingered at her side;
And many a native song yet tells
Of that pale stranger's bride.
Two years have passed—how much two years
Have taken in their flight!
They've taken from the lip its smile,
And from the eye its light.
Poor child! she was a child in years—
So timid and so young;
With what a fond and earnest faith
To desperate hope she clung!
His eyes grew cold—his voice grew strange—
They only grew more dear.
She served him meekly, anxiously,
With love—half faith—half fear.
And can a fond and faithful heart
Be worthless in those eyes
For which it beats?—Ah! wo to those
Who such a heart despise.
Poor child! what lonely days she passed,
With nothing to recall
But bitter taunts, and careless words,
And looks more cold than all.
Alas! for love, that sits at home,
Forsaken, and yet fond;
The grief that sits beside the hearth—
Life has no grief beyond.
He left her, but she followed him—
She thought he could not bear,
When she had left her home for him,
To look on her despair.
Adown the strange and mighty stream
She took her lonely way;
The stars at night her pilots were,
As was the sun by day.
Yet mournfully—how mournfully!—
The Indian looked behind,
When the last sound of voice or step
Died on the midnight wind,
Yet still adown the gloomy stream
She plied her weary oar;
Her husband—he had left their home,
And it was home no more.
She found him—but she found in vain—
He spurned her from his side;
He said, her brow was all too dark,
For her to be his bride.
She grasped his hands,—her own were cold,—
And silent turned away,
As she had not a tear to shed,
And not a word to say.
And pale as death she reached her boat,
And guided it along;
With broken voice she strove to raise
A melancholy song.
None watched the lonely Indian girl,—
She passed unmarked of all,
Until they saw her slight canoe
Approach the mighty Fall!
Upright, within that slender boat
They saw the pale girl stand,
Her dark hair streaming far behind—
Upraised her desperate hand.
The air is filled with shriek and shout—
They call, but call in vain;
The boat amid the waters dash'd—
'Twas never seen again!
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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Sitting by the Fire
Barren Age and withered World!
Oh! the dying leaves,
Like a drizzling rain,
Falling round the roof -
Pattering on the pane!
Frosty Age and cold, cold World!
Ghosts of other days,
Trooping past the faded fire,
Flit before the gaze.
Now the wind goes soughing wild
O'er the whistling Earth;
And we front a feeble flame,
Sitting round the hearth!
Sitting by the fire,
Watching in its glow,
Ghosts of other days
Trooping to and fro.
Oh, the nights - the nights we've spent,
Sitting by the fire,
Cheerful in its glow;
Twenty summers back -
Twenty years ago!
If the days were days of toil
Wherefore should we mourn;
There were shadows near the shine,
Flowers with the thorn?
And we still can recollect
Evenings spent in mirth -
Fragments of a broken life,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Cheerful in its glow,
Twenty summers back -
Twenty years ago.
Beauty stooped to bless us once,
Sitting by the fire,
Happy in its glow;
Forty summers back -
Forty years ago.
Words of love were interchanged,
Maiden hearts we stole;
And the light affection throws
Slept on every soul.
Oh, the hours went flying past -
Hours of priceless worth;
But we took no note of Time,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Happy in its glow,
Forty summers back -
Forty years ago.
Gleesome children were we not?
Sitting by the fire,
Ruddy in its glow,
Sixty summers back -
Sixty years ago.
Laughing voices filled the room;
Oh, the songs we sung,
When the evenings hurried by -
When our hearts were young!
Pleasant faces watched the flame -
Eyes illumed with mirth -
And we told some merry tales,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Ruddy in its glow,
Sixty summers back -
Sixty years ago.
Barren Age and withered World!
Oh, the dying leaves,
Like a drizzling rain,
Falling round the roof -
Pattering on the pane!
Frosty Age and cold, cold World!
Ghosts of other days,
Trooping past the faded fire,
Flit before the gaze.
Now the wind goes soughing wild
O'er the whistling Earth;
And we front a feeble flame,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Watching, in its glow,
Ghosts of other days
Trooping to and fro!
poem by Henry Kendall
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Bryant’s Seventieth Birthday
NOVEMBER 3, 1864
O EVEN-HANDED Nature! we confess
This life that men so honor, love, and bless
Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less.
We count the precious seasons that remain;
Strike not the level of the golden grain,
But heap it high with years, that earth may gain.
What heaven can lose,--for heaven is rich in song
Do not all poets, dying, still prolong
Their broken chants amid the seraph throng,
Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen,
And England's heavenly minstrel sits between
The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Florentine?
This was the first sweet singer in the cage
Of our close-woven life. A new-born age
Claims in his vesper song its heritage.
Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's desire!
Moloch, who calls our children through the fire,
Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre.
We count not on the dial of the sun
The hours, the minutes, that his sands have run;
Rather, as on those flowers that one by one.
From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display
Till evening's planet with her guiding ray
Leads in the blind old mother of the day,
We reckon by his songs, each song a flower,
The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour,
Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bower.
His morning glory shall we e'er forget?
His noontide's full-blown lily coronet?
His evening primrose has not opened yet;
Nay, even if creeping Time should hide the skies
In midnight from his century-laden eyes,
Darkened like his who sang of Paradise,
Would not some hidden song-bud open bright
As the resplendent cactus of the night
That floods the gloom with fragrance and with
light?
How can we praise the verse whose music flows
With solemn cadence and majestic close,
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose?
How shall we thank him that in evil days
He faltered never,--nor for blame, nor praise,
Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays?
But as his boyhood was of manliest hue,
So to his youth his manly years were true,
All dyed in royal purple through and through!
He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strung
Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongue
Let not the singer grieve to die unsung!
Marbles forget their message to mankind:
In his own verse the poet still we find,
In his own page his memory lives enshrined,
As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,--
As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze,
Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees.
Poets, like youngest children, never grow
Out of their mother's fondness. Nature so
Holds their soft hands, and will not let them go,
Till at the last they track with even feet
Her rhythmic footsteps, and their pulses beat
Twinned with her pulses, and their lips repeat.
The secrets she has told them, as their own
Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known,
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne!
O lover of her mountains and her woods,
Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes,
Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudes,
Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fire
Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyre
To join the music of the angel choir!
Yet, since life's amplest measure must be filled,
Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilled,
And all must fade that evening sunsets gild,
Grant, Father, ere he close the mortal eyes
That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice,
Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skies!
Then, when his summons comes, since come it must,
And, looking heavenward with unfaltering trust,
He wraps his drapery round him for the dust,
His last fond glance will show him o'er his head
The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread
In lambent glory, blue and white and red,--
The Southern cross without its bleeding load,
The milky way of peace all freshly strowed,
And every white-throned star fixed in its lost
abode!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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A Man’s Wooing
YOU said, last night, you did not think
In all the world of men
Was one true lover--true alike
In deed and word and pen;--
One knightly lover, constant as
The old knights, who sleep sound:
Some women, said you, there might be--
Not one man faithful found:
Not one man, resolute to win,
Or, winning, firm to hold
The woman, among women--sought
With steadfast love and bold.
Not one whose noble life and pure
Had power so to control
To tender hublest loyalty
Her free, but reverent soul,
That she beside him gladly moved
As sovereign and slave;
In faith unfettered, homage true,
Each claiming what each gave.
And then you dropped your eyelids white,
And stood in maiden bloom
Proud, calm:--unloving and unloved
Descending to the tomb.
I let you speak and ne'er replied;
I watched you for a space,
Until that passionate glow, like youth,
Had faded from your face.
No anger showed I--nor complaint:
My heart's beats shook no breath,
Although I knew that I had found
Her, who brings life or death;
The woman, true as life or death;
The love, strong as these twain,
Against which seas of mortal fate
Beat harmlessly in vain.
'Not one true man': I hear it still,
Your voice's clear cold sound,
Upholding all your constant swains
And good knights underground.
'Not one true lover':--Woman, turn;
I love you. Words are small;
'T is life speaks plain: In twenty years
Perhaps you may know all.
I seek you. You alone I seek:
All other women, fair,
Or wise, or good, may go their way,
Without my thought or care.
But you I follow day by day,
And night by night I keep
My heart's chaste mansion lighted, where
Your image lies asleep.
Asleep! If e'er to wake, He knows
Who Eve to Adam brought,
As you to me: the embodiment
Of boyhood's dear sweet thought,
And youth's fond dream, and manhood's hope,
That still half hopeless shone;
Till every rootless vain ideal
Commingled into one,--
You; who are so diverse from me,
And yet as much my own
As this my soul, which, formed apart,
Dwells in its bodily throne;--
Or rather for that perishes,
As these our two lives are
So strangely, marvellously drawn
Together from afar;
Till week by week and month by month
We closer seem to grow,
As two hill streams, flushed with rich rain,
Each into the other flow.
I swear no oaths, I tell no lies,
Nor boast I never knew
A love-dream--we all dream in youth--
But waking, I found you,
The real woman, whose first touch
Aroused to highest life
My real manhood. Crown it then,
Good angel, friend, love, wife!
Imperfect as I am, and you,
Perchance, not all you seem,
We two together shall bind up
Our past's bright, broken dream.
We two together shall dare look
Upon the years to come,
As travellers, met in far countrie,
Together look towards home.
Come home! The old tales were not false,
Yet the new faith is true;
Those saintly souls who made men knights
Were women such as you.
For the great love that teaches love
Deceived not, ne'er deceives:
And she who most believes in man
Makes him what she believes.
Come! If you come not, I can wait;
My faith, like life, is long;
My will--not little; my hope much:
The patient are the strong.
Yet come, ah come! The years run fast,
And hearths grow swiftly cold--
Hearts too: but while blood beats in mine
It holds you and will hold.
And so before you it lies bare,--
Take it or let it lie,
It is an honest heart; and yours
To all eternity.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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The Maid of Gerringong
Rolling through the gloomy gorges, comes the roaring southern blast,
With a sound of torrents flying, like a routed army, past,
And, beneath the shaggy forelands, strange fantastic forms of surf
Fly, like wild hounds, at the darkness, crouching over sea and earth;
Swooping round the sunken caverns, with an aggravated roar;
Falling where the waters tumble foaming on a screaming shore!
In a night like this we parted. Eyes were wet though speech was low,
And our thoughts were all in mourning for the dear, dead Long Ago!
In a night like this we parted. Hearts were sad though they were young,
And you left me very lonely, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
Said my darling, looking at me, through the radiance of her tears:
“Many changes, O my loved One, we will meet in after years;
Changes like to sudden sunbursts flashing down a rainy steep —
Changes like to swift-winged shadows falling on a moony deep!
And they are so cheerless sometimes, leaving, when they pass us by,
Deepening dolours on the sweet, sad face of our Humanity.
But you’ll hope, and fail and faint not, with that heart so warm and true,
Watching for the coming Morning, that will flood the World for you;
Listening through a thirsty silence, till the low winds bear along
Eager footfalls — pleasant voices,” said the Maid of Gerringong.
Said my darling, when the wind came sobbing wildly round the eaves:
“Oh, the Purpose scattered from me, like the withered autumn leaves!
Oh, the wreck of Love’s ambition! Oh, the fond and full belief
That I yet should hear them hail you in your land a God-made chief!
In the loud day they may slumber, but my thoughts will not be still
When the weary world is sleeping, and the moon is on the hill;
Then your form will bend above me, then your voice will rise and fall,
Though I turn and hide in darkness, with my face against the wall,
And my Soul must rise and listen while those homeless memories throng
Moaning in the night for shelter,” said the Maid of Gerringong.
Ay, she passed away and left me! Rising through the dusk of tears,
Came a vision of that parting every day for many years!
Every day, though she had told me not to court the strange sweet pain,
Something whispered — something led me to our olden haunts again:
And I used to wander nightly, by the surges and the ships,
Harping on those last fond accents that had trembled from her lips:
Till a vessel crossed the waters, and I heard a stranger say,
“One you loved has died in silence with her dear face turned away.”
Oh! the eyes that flash upon me, and the voice that comes along —
Oh! my light, my life, my darling dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
Some one saith, “Oh, you that mock at Passion with a worldly whine,
Would you change the face of Nature — would you limit God’s design?
Hide for shame from well-raised clamour, moderate fools who would be wise;
Hide for shame — the World will hoot you! Love is Love, and never dies”
And another asketh, doubting that my brother speaks the truth,
“Can we love in age as fondly as we did in days of youth?
Will dead faces always haunt us, in the time of faltering breath?
Shall we yearn, and we so feeble?” Ay, for Love is Love in Death.
Oh! the Faith with sure foundation! — let the Ages roll along,
You are mine, and mine for ever, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
Last night, dear, I dreamt about you, and I thought that far from men
We were walking, both together, in a fragrant seaside glen;
Down where we could hear the surges wailing round the castled cliffs,
Down where we could see the sunset reddening on the distant skiffs;
There a fall of mountain waters tumbled through the knotted bowers
Bright with rainbow colours reeling on the purple forest flowers.
And we rested on the benches of a cavern old and hoar;
And I whispered, “this is surely her I loved in days of yore!
False he was who brought sad tidings! Why were you away so long,
When you knew who waited for you, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong?
“Did the strangers come around you, in the far-off foreign land?
Did they lead you out of sorrow, with kind face and loving hand?
Had they pleasant ways to court you — had they silver words to bind?
Had they souls more fond and loyal than the soul you left behind?
Do not think I blame you, dear one! Ah! my heart is gushing o’er
With the sudden joy and wonder, thus to see your face once more.
Happy is the chance which joins us after long, long years of pain:
And, oh, blessed was whatever sent you back to me again!
Now our pleasure will be real — now our hopes again are young:
Now we’ll climb Life’s brightest summits, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
“In the sound of many footfalls, did you falter with regret
For a step which used to gladden in the time so vivid yet?
When they left you in the night-hours, did you lie awake like me,
With the thoughts of what we had been — what we never more could be?
Ah! you look but do not answer while I halt and question here,
Wondering why I am so happy, doubting that you are so near.
Sure these eyes with love are blinded, for your form is waxing faint;
And a dreamy splendour crowns it, like the halo round a saint!
When I talk of what we will be, and new aspirations throng,
Why are you so sadly silent, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong?”
But she faded into sunset, and the sunset passed from sight;
And I followed madly after, through the misty, moony night,
Crying, “do not leave me lonely! Life has been so cold and drear,
You are all that God has left me, and I want you to be near!
Do not leave me in the darkness! I have walked a weary way,
Listening for your truant footsteps — turn and stay, my darling, stay!”
But she came not though I waited, watching through a splendid haze,
Where the lovely Phantom halted ere she vanished from my gaze.
Then I thought that rain was falling, for there rose a stormy song,
And I woke in gloom and tempest, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong!
poem by Henry Kendall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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