English

Youth's meadows all were bountiful with gold;
The sweet seas all were laughing in their glee,
Responsive on the beach the breakers rolled.
Assiduous sang the birds in every tree
Chanting the wedding, love, of you and me;
For through the realms of nature was it told,
Yea, signalized through earth eternally
And through the azure heavens wide and free,
And o'er the yellow furze-crowned breezy wold
Where hand in hand we wandered, love, of old,
Brushing the heather-sprays that reached the knee

I call thee! o'er the distance sounds my voice.
Art thou asleep? then hearken through a dream:
Or art thou waking? then let music seem
To reach and stir thee; in its power rejoice.
Where'er thou art I send for thee: — a gleam
Of sudden sunshine is upon the waves
Of my strong singing, and it crowns the graves
Of buried hopes with one triumphant beam.

The past has vanished: with me face the years
That shall be to thee one triumphant crown;
Wipe the last lingering trace of lonely tears;

And now I leave these thoughts — e'en Nature too
I leave, for thou art Nature, and her whole
Delight in thine immeasurable soul
Blossoms; thou art to me the pearly dew
Of morn, and whiter than the rose in hue, —
Thou hast the notes of birds upon thy tongue:
Through thee the immortal cadences have rung:
Thou art the darkling eve; the midday blue.

I leave all things for thee — the summer air;
For thou art sweeter, and thy mouth more fair.
I quit the sacred rapture of the night;

I lost her, and the passionate angel came
With heavenly glitter in her glowing wings,
And words of comfort, and a crown like flame:
Such change, such gradual recompence time brings,
Touching, transforming many an early aim.
Through heaven we passed together, and we saw
With sighs of rapture and with trembling awe
Love's perfect goal: we conquered love and fame.

In heaven we dwelt together for long years
And plucked white wondrous blossoms for a token,
To bear away if e'er the dream was broken,

A GIFT was given us once, a gift most rare,
To keep:
A child, with God's own sunshine in her hair
And God's own heart of love most pure and deep.

We understood her not. Her ways were not
Like ours.
We understood her not, because she brought
Held tight in childish hands heaven's unknown flowers.

And, seeing that her flowers were not of earth
Indeed,
We pained her soul and mocked her simple mirth
And called her choicest flower a worthless weed.

Her choicest sweetest flower was perfect trust,

This is the secret of triumphant Art, —
To lose itself in Nature, pour its heart
Upon the winds away.
Not to turn pale-hued at the storm-blast's drum,
Nor bugles of the wild waves when they come
Fanfaring past the headland grey.

To lose its single self, and to suspire
With Nature's breath; to know the clouds' desire,
The life of stars and trees;
To hold itself suspended in the mid
Large tide of things; to lurk most safely hid
Within the soft plumes of the breeze;

This is the life of Art, the life of man:

I.

We shall not lonely be:
The breakers of death's sea
Fringe with their white line no inhuman shore
Within death's valleys meet
The faces we found sweet,
The hearts and hands that sought our own of yore
Upon death's uplands, lo!
Full many a voice we know
And flowers like those our living green earth bore.

II.

No mother owns a son. — Their lives are drawn
Together for a time. O'er valley and lawn
Of this our earth they pass.
But as they older grow, their spheres divide:
One seeks by choice the ice-blue mountain-side:
The other loves the daisied sunlit grass.

Many have lived before. Christ had derived
From many a star wherein his soul had lived
Soul-learning, lessons high:
Perhaps had suffered for another race;
Others perhaps had loved the royal face;
Another cross perhaps had seen him die.

Now thou art with me, angel of each day,
Each day is as an angel golden-plumed;
The old desires that tortured and consumed
Have gathered rapid wings, and sped away.
The old fierce yearning is a thing entombed
For ever 'neath the old skies cold and grey;
Upon life's grass-plots many a flower has bloomed;
The larks in blue skies murmur music gay.

O woman, woman, who canst give a crown
Sweeter than roses, richer than renown,
How long thou lingerest ere thine hands bestow, —
Yet when thou dost give, how divine a glow

The sweet face loved within the city's smoke
Is not the face that, under birch or oak,
The poet loves and sings.
The wingless love of cities changes form
When mixed with ardour of the wild sea-storm,
And takes the sea-bird's wings.

This gives to love its splendour and its bloom,
This, the background of landscape. Love for home
Hath all the world indeed.
The maiden loved within a wood of firs
Is not the maiden of the lone hill-spurs
Or austere mountain-mead.