Classic Poem

Fair the world is, though the breezes of September
O'er the moors and through the forest-alleys pass:
Though the light of burning August we remember
Is a light for ever lost to us, alas!
Though the glory of the branches and the flowers
Has for ever with the summer passed away,
Love is living yet within the forest-bowers
And his heart is still as tender as in May.

Was the spring-time half as sweet to me, I wonder,
When the pearly snowdrops peeped above the mould,
When the green buds burst their wintry sheaths asunder
And the crocus dared to don its crown of gold —
When the sunlight flashed across the river-billows
As the wild wind lashed them into stormy glee,
And the branches dipping in them of the willows
Deemed they dipped their grey-green leafage in the sea?

Was the summer half as fair with all its gleaming
Of the crimson fuchsias near our cottage gate?
Summer — when the stars of midnight watched me dreaming
At the window, when I left it whispered " Wait! "
Summer — when the rose with passion seemed to languish
And the lily sighed her love-tale to the rose;
When the world's heart scorned the very thought of anguish
And its spirit was a spirit at repose.

Summer — when I wondered, wondered, looking forward,
Who would love me, strove to picture and divine;
Started at a fancied footstep, gazing doorward, —
Sat in fancy, often, with his hand in mine;
Summer — when my heart knew little as I wandered
Counting blossoms, watching butterfly and bee,
Knew so little of the love-lore that it pondered,
Knew so little, O my lover-soul, of thee!

Was the summer half as lovely as the season
That brings perfect love and passion to my heart?
Let the blossoms madden at September's treason!
Pangless I can watch their glowing tints depart.
For my heart and all its thoughts are given over
To my darling, and there's summer in his gaze:
Let the lily go in mourning for her lover!
All my heart is full of dreams of summer days.

All my heart is full of dreams of love and heaven;
God is good to me, aye good to me indeed:
Love for teacher and for prophet he has given,
Love for sermon and for bible and for creed.
I was lonely in the wild world, I remember,
Lonely through the leafy balmy days of June;
I am happy and companioned in September;
Envious, doubtless, is the silver lonely moon.

Envious doubtless are the sea-birds on the ocean:
On the tossing waters where have they to rest?
Round them stretch the waves in ceaseless angry motion,
Where is any nook for haven or for nest?
Envious, doubtless, are the stars i' the airy spaces;
Leagues they are from any loving star apart;
Lonely sail they, leagues from love in starry faces,
But my darling has his dwelling in my heart.

He will raise me, he will lift me by his passion
Towards a region wholly pure and wholly fair:
We shall love with angels' love in holiest fashion,
Yet find sweetness in the old earth's summer air.
We will visit all the old earth's sacred places
And in every land be happy and at home,
Knit in union closer for the stranger faces;
Dream in Paris, pass our honeymoon in Rome.

We will wander hand in hand, with love and slowly,
Through the cornfields and the towns of Palestine;
Fancy that we see the eyes of Jesus holy,
Dream we hear the voice most tender and divine.
We, the children of the dark-blue Northern ocean,
Born in mist-land, loved and nurtured by the sea,
In the sunny East will gaze with deep emotion
On sunstricken leafless drear Gethsemane.

All our life will be the better for the glory
That once shone through Jesus' figure and his face;
Better shall we understand the sweet old story
When we see with tearful eyes the very place,
As we say, " Beneath this heaven of cloudless weather
Wandered Jesus, here he prayed and here he spoke " —
We shall wander through the vineyards, we together,
Where his loving heart grew weary, where it broke.

Though the beauty and the glamour have departed,
Doubtless, from the fields and hills that Jesus saw,
Yet we'll gaze with love upon them, tender-hearted,
And with something still within the soul of awe:
For the paths that God as perfect man hath taken
Must for ever gleam with wonder, where he trod
Still the human heart with love and faith unshaken
Will behold the man, — beholding him, the God.

We will trace in fancy spots he may have cherished,
Say, " This corner of a vineyard he held dear: "
See in fancy the lone hill-side where he perished
And the rock-tomb whence his risen voice rang clear.
" Here, " we say, " the loving sad disciples wept him;
Here they laid his silent body to repose,
Deeming that the eternal darkness would have kept him
Sleeping ever; here they marvelled, when he rose. "

Here our cottage has been home to me, and pleasure,
Priceless happiness of girlhood, I have known:
To my mother been her darling, her one treasure,
Made my father's life less weary, less alone.
— Now my life at last will leave the lowly places,
Break to noble freedom, burst its prison bars;
But for ever I shall love the dear lost faces,
Love them as the golden morning loves the stars!

I will tell my husband many a simple story;
He will listen, for he loves me, to my tale:
Tell him of our dear old garden's summer glory,
From my girlish dreaming draw aside the veil —
Tell him how I wandered through the hazel cover
Dreaming of him, dreaming of him by the lake;
How I longed to be of service to my lover,
How I yearned to give my life-blood for his sake.

Foolish dreams, it may be, — weak and very girlish;
Yet they have their beauty and value, let them be!
The vast ocean is not angry, is not churlish:
Let the river sing its ditty to the sea!
Let the river tell its quiet tales and simple
Of the blossoms growing in the inland nooks,
Though the sea receive with hardly a surface-dimple
All the life-throbs of a thousand eager brooks.

All my thoughts and dreams are his and he will treasure
Touch them tenderly, transfigure one by one
All my girlish hopes and every girlish pleasure,
As the shadowy vales are lighted by the sun.
All my friends are his — he'll make me love them better,
Never rob me of the true heart of a friend;
Make me faithful to each promise to the letter,
Make me cling to father and mother to the end.

All the children shall be happy at our wedding!
(They will miss their girlish teacher's loving rule) —
While another path and happier I am treading,
They will tread the worn old pathway to the school;
To the same old school with honeysuckle clinging
Round the doorway and festooning from the eaves —
I shall often hear the hymn that they are singing,
Hear their fingers rustle through their lesson-leaves.

I shall see them trotting underneath the larches,
See them in their scarlet tippets and their hoods,
See them enter 'neath the school-house grey-stone arches,
Hear their laughter in the playground of the woods;
Hear some tiny child's glad cry of sudden pleasure
When he spies the first blue egg within the nest,
Gathers up with careful hands his turquoise-treasure,
Shows it, full of lordly triumph, to the rest.

I shall see the first rich golden daffodilly
Don its gorgeous glittering raiment on the bank,
Mark the snow-white wedding-garment of the lily,
Stand again upon our brook-bridge — just a plank —
Marking, as the gentle West wind lightly winnows
The dark leafage of the rustling alder-tree,
Half a hundred darting gleaming saucy minnows
Make believe that they are salmon in the sea!

Then, that every thought and dream may be the sweeter,
I will turn to him, my husband and my friend:
How the present joy will make the past completer!
How the early days will sanctify the end!
Passing from my pleasant dream of days behind me,
Dream of English gardens, English hill and sky,
Golden splendid Southern sunlight will remind me
That I'm dreaming on the shores of Italy!

Then a loving kiss will bring me to my senses;
I must leave the children, leave them far away,
Leave them labouring over nouns and verbs and tenses,
Leave them lonely at their labour and their play:
I must leave them, for my husband's voice is calling;
Leave the tender lovely dreams of early life;
See the curtain o'er the girl's work swiftly falling —
There's a grander mission waiting for the wife!