O THAT 't were possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!
When I was wont to meet her In the silent woody places
By the home that gave me birth, We stood tranced in long embraces Mixed with kisses sweeter, sweeter Than anything on earth.
A shadow flits before me, Not thou, but like to thee:
Ah, Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be!
It leads me forth at evening,
It lightly winds and steals
In a cold white robe before me,
When all my spirit reels
At the shouts, the leagues of lights, And the roaring of the wheels.
Half the night I waste in sighs, Half in dreams I sorrow after The delight of early skies; In a wakeful doze I sorrow For the hand, the lips, the eyes, For the meeting of the morrow, The delight of happy laughter, The delight of low replies.
'T is a morning pure and sweet, And a dewy splendor falls On the little flower that clings To the turrets and the walls; 'T is a morning pure and sweet, And the light and shadow fleet; She is walking in the meadow, And the woodland echo rings; In a moment we shall meet; She is singing in the meadow, And the rivulet at her feet Ripples on in light and shadow To the ballad that she sings.
Do I hear her sing as of old, My bird with the shining head,
My own dove with the tender eye?
But there rings on a sudden a passionate
There is some one dying or dead,
And a sullen thunder is roll'd;
For a tumult shakes the city, And I wake, my dream is fled; In the shuddering dawn, behold, Without knowledge, without pity, By the curtains of my bed That abiding phantom cold!
Get thee hence, nor come again, Mix not memory with doubt, Pass, thou deathlike type of pain, Pass and cease to move about! 'T is the blot upon the brain That will show itself without.
Then I rise, the eave-drops fall, And the yellow vapors choke The great city sounding wide; The day comes, a dull red ball Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke On the misty river-tide.
Thro' the hubbub of the market I steal, a wasted frame;
It crosses here, it crosses there,
Thro' all that crowd confused and loud,
The shadow still the same;
And on my heavy eyelids
My anguish hangs like shame.
Came glimmering thro' the laurels At the quiet evenfall,
In the garden by the turrets
Of the old manorial hall!
Would the happy spirit descend From the realms of light and song, In the chamber or the street, As she looks among the blest, Should I fear to greet my friend Or to say, "Forgive the wrong," Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet, To the regions of thy rest"?
But the broad light glares and beats, And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be;
And I loathe the squares and streets, And the faces that one meets,
Hearts with no love for me:
Always I long to creep
Into some still cavern deep,
There to weep, and weep, and weep
My whole soul out to thee.
COME to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again!
For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to me!
Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth, Come now, and let me dream it truth; And part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say: My love! why sufferest thou?
Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again!
For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.
THE gray sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;' Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
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