Pinks and hyacinths perfume
All our garden-fronted room;
Hither, close beside me, Love!
Do not whisper, do not move.
Here we two will softly stay,
Side by side, the livelong day.
Lean thy head upon my breast,
Ever shall it give thee rest,
Ever would I gaze to meet
Eyes of thine up-glancing, Sweet!
What enchanted dreams are ours!
While the murmur of the showers
Dropping on the tranquil ground,
Dropping on the leaves and flowers,
Wraps our yearning souls around
In the drapery of its sound.
Still the plenteous streamlets fall :
Here two hearts are all in all
To each other; and they beat
With no evanescent heat,
But softly, steadily, hour by hour,
With the calm, melodious power
Of the gentle Summer rain,
That in heaven so long hath lain,
And from out that shoreless sea
· Pours its blessings tenderly.
Freer yet its currents swell!
Here are streams that flow as well, Rivulets of the constant heart; But a little space apart
Glide they now, and soon shall run, Love-united, into one.
It shall chance, in future days,
That again the lurid lays
Of that hidden sun shall shine
On the flow'ret and the vine,
And again the meadow-springs
Fly away on misty wings :
But no glare of Fate adverse
Shall on us achieve its curse,
Never any baneful gleam
Waste our clear, perennial stream;
For its fountains lie below
That malign and ominous glow,---
Lie in shadowy grottoes cool,
Where all kindly spirits rule;
Calmly ever shall it flow
Toward the waters of the sea,-
That serene Eternity!
GRAY orchards starred with fruitage gold and red,
Field beyond field of yellow-tasseled corn,
Rippling responsive to each breath of morn.
Along the southern wall the dark vines shed
Their splendid clusters, blue-black and pale green,
With liquid sunshine through their thin films seen.
In yonder mead the hay-makers at work
With lusty sounds the clear tense air fulfil,
Rearing the shapely hayrick's mimic hill,
The dried grass tossing with light-wielded fork.
Daylong the reapers glean the bladed gold;
High to the topmast orchard branches climb
The apple-gatherers, and from each limb
Shake the ripe globes of sweetness, downward rolled
Upon the leaf-strewn ground; and all day long
From the near vineyard comes the merry song
Of those who prune the stocks and tread the press.
The spirit melts beneath the mastering sense
Of supreme beauty and beneficence,
Power divine and awful gentleness.
space for sadness in the heart to-day,
Seeing the generous, faithful earth fulfil
The Spring-tide promise of vine, field, and hill,
When bush and hedge were rosy-flushed with May.
Yet at the threshold of fruition fain
We pause to catch the savour once again Of sweet expectancy. The perfect year
In fourfold beauty rounds itself at length, With golden fulness of developed strength, Into the sure, complete, unswerving sphere.
This the result of frozen Winter-rains,
Of hard, white snows, of dull loud-dripping thaw, Of showers and shine of Spring, of March blasts raw, Of glaring August heats,-these dainty grains,
This fruitage delicate. Oh, sluggard soul!
What harvest reapest thou as seasons roll?
Mayhap to thee the slow results of time
Bring also profit, though thy fruit, hung high,
Escape the glance of careless passers-by,
A seeming fragile husk of empty rhyme.
Yet there are those who know what fed the root,
What long, dull tedium as of wintry hours,
What rapture, as of Spring-light after showers,
Went to the ripening of this strange, frail fruit.
Defeat and hope, disaster, joy and pain,
Grief, pleasure, and despair—the same old train
That follows every soul. No grafted seed,
No alien harvest this, but a true part
Of the whole being-soul, and pulse, and heart—
That from the living bough is lightly freed.
NOT a leaf on the tree, not a bud in the hollow,
Where late swung the blue-bell, and blossom'd the rose;
And hush'd is the cry of the swift-darting swallow
That circled the lake in the twilight's dim close.
Gone, gone are the woodbine and sweet-scented brier
That bloom'd o'er the hillock, and gladden'd the vale;
And the vine that uplifted its green-pointed spire
Hangs drooping and sere on the frost-cover'd pale.
And hark to the gush of the deep-welling fountain
That prattled and shone in the light of the moon;
Soon, soon shall its rushing be still on the mountain,
And locked up in silence its frolicsome tune.
Then heap up the hearthstone with dry forest branches,
And gather about me, my children, in glee ;
For cold on the upland the stormy wind launches,
And dear is the home of my loved ones to me.
MEEK snowdrops rising modestly
From out the wintry earth,
Whence comes the secret store of strength
That gives you chastened birth,
When other flowers have faded,
And all the land is bare,
Like troops of angel-faces
On the cold and icy air?
Ye tell that nought can perish
That life but seems asleep
When earth is wrapped in winding-sheet
Of snow so chill and deep,
Ye tell that still is stirring
Beneath the mantle white,
A soul that soon will testify
For Nature's life and light.
Sweet witnesses for Winter time-
True harbingers of Spring,
Oh, ye are fair and pure and rare;
New hopes ye well may bring
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