One by one the flowers close, Lily and dewy rose Good deeds are many, but good Shutting their tender petals from the lives are few: Thousands taste the full cup; who drains the lees? Circa 1850. WITHERING FADE, tender lily, Fade, O crimson rose, Fade every flower, Sweetest flower that blows. Go, chilly autumn, Come, O winter cold; Let the green stalks die away Into common mould. moon: The grasshoppers are still; but not so soon Are still the noisy crows. The dormouse squats and eats Beneath the spreading roots of a broad lime; Nibbling his fill he stops from time to time And listens where he sits. From far the lowings come Of cattle driven home: From farther still the wind brings fitfully The vast continual murmur of the sea, Now loud, now almost dumb. The gnats whirl in the air, The evening gnats; and there The owl opes broad his eyes and wings to sail For prey; the bat wakes; and the shell-less snail Remote, each single star Comes out, till there they are All shining brightly. How the dews fall damp! While close at hand the glow-worm lights her lamp, Or twinkles from afar. But evening now is done As much as if the sun Comes forth, clammy and bare. Day-giving had arisen in the East Hark! that's the nightingale, Her song told when this ancient earth was young: So echoes answered when her song was sung In the first wooded vale. We call it love and pain, The passion of her strain ; And yet we little understand or know: Why should it not be rather joy that SO Throbs in each throbbing vein? In separate herds the deer Lie; here the bucks, and here The does, and by its mother sleeps the fawn: Through all the hours of night until the dawn They sleep, forgetting fear. The hare sleeps where it lies, With wary half-closed eyes; The cock has ceased to crow, the hen to cluck: Only the fox is out, some heedless duck Or chicken to surprise. For night has come; and the great calm has ceased, The quiet sands have run. 7 February 1850. TWO THOUGHTS OF DEATH I HER heart that loved me once is rottenness Now and corruption; and her life is dead That was to have been one with mine, she said. The earth must lie with such a cruel stress On eyes whereon the white lids used to press ; Foul worms fill up her mouth so sweet and red; Foul worms are underneath her graceful head; Yet these, being born of her from nothingness, These worms are certainly flesh of her flesh. How is it that the grass is rank and green And the dew-dropping rose is brave and fresh Above what was so sweeter far than they? Even as her beauty hath passed In the woods to sing and play, had not been. 2 So I said underneath the dusky trees: 'I have lost my bird,' said she, Weeping bitterly. But the Mother made her answer, But, because still I loved her Though thy bird come nevermore, memory, I stooped to pluck a pale anemone, And lo my hand lighted upon heartsease Not fully blown while with new moth that Do not weep; Child, and keep Tears for future pain more deep.' 'Sweet rose, do not wither,' The Girl said. But a blight had touched its heart Rose toward the sun sunlighted And it drooped its crimson head. flashed on me Its wings that seemed to throb like heart-pulses. Far far away it flew, far out of sight, From earth and flowers of earth it passed away In the morning it had opened But the leaves fell one by one As though it flew straight up into They fell upon the dewy earth the light. Then my heart answered me: Thou fool, to say That she is dead whose night is turned to day, And no more shall her day turn back to night. 16 March 1850. THREE MOMENTS I am free, I will not stay, Which nourished once now tainted them. Again the young Girl wept And sought her Mother's ear: 'My rose is dead so full of grace, The very rose I meant to place In the wreath that I wear.' 'Nay, never weep for such as this,' The Mother answered her: 'But weave another crown, less fair Perhaps, but fitter for thy hair. And keep thy tears,' the Mother said, 'For something heavier.' The Woman knelt, but did not pray Nor weep nor cry; she only said, 'Not this, not this!' and clasped Then she plucked the stately lilies, her hands Against her heart, and bowed her head, Knowing not she was more fair, And she listened to the skylark In the morning air. While the great struggle shook the Then, a kerchief all her crown, bed. 'Not this, not this!' tears did not fall; 'Not this!' it was all She could say ; no sobs would come ; The tears that used to flow tears Wasted in former years!' Then the grave Mother made reply: 'O Daughter mine, be of good cheer, Rejoicing thou canst shed no tear. Thy pain is almost over now. Once more thy heart shall throb with pain, But then shall never throb again. Oh happy thou who canst not weep, Oh happy thou!' 23 March 1850. IS AND WAS SHE was whiter than the ermine That half shadowed neck and And her tresses were more golden She looked for the acorns brown, Bent their bough, and shook them down. Then she thought of Christmas holly And of Maybloom in sweet May; Then she loved to pick the cherries And to turn the hay. She was humble then and meek, Now she is a noble lady Yet you think her proud; Spring 1850. SONG WE buried her among the flowers And choked back all our tears; her joy Could never be our grief. She lies among the living flowers And grass, the only thing That perishes;—or is it that Our Autumn was her Spring? Doubtless, if we could see her face, The smile is settled there Which almost broke our hearts when last We knelt by her in prayer; When, with tired eyes and failing Or like the golden harvest-moon breath And hands crossed on her breast, Perhaps she saw her Guardian spread His wings above her rest. So she sleeps hidden in the flowers; But yet a little while, And we shall see her wake and rise, Fair, with the self-same smile. 14 May 1850. ANNIE ANNIE is fairer than her kith And kinder than her kin: Her eyes are like the open heaven Holy and pure from sin : Her heart is like an ordered house Good fairies harbour in : Her sisters stand as hyacinths Around the perfect rose: My bud will scarce unclose. That comes and sips and goes: My bud hides in the tender green Most sweet and hardly shows. Oh cruel kindness in soft eyes That are no more than kind, On which I gaze my heart away Till the tears make me blind! How is it others find the way That I can never find To make her laugh that sweetest laugh Which leaves all else behind? Her hair is like the golden corn A low wind breathes upon : When all the mists are gone : Or like a stream with golden sands On which the sun has shone Day after day in summertime Ere autumn leaves are wan. I will not tell her that I love, A DIRGE SHE was as sweet as violets in the Spring, As fair as any rose in Summertime : But frail are roses in their prime And violets in their blossoming. Even so was she: And now she lies, The earth upon her fast-closed eyes, Dead in the darkness silently. The sweet Spring violets never bud again, The roses bloom and perish in a morn: They see no second quickening lying lorn: Their beauty dies as though in vain. Must she die so For evermore, Cold as the sand upon the shore, As passionless for joy and woe? |