Life with the hope of the love thereof,
Love.
– "What is the value of knowing it?" —
Only the worth of owing it;
Need of the bud contents the light;
Dew at dawn and nard at night,
Beauty, aroma, honey at heart,
Which is debtor, part for part,
Heart?
Thoughts, when the heart is heedable,
Then to the heart are readable;
I in the texts of your eyes have read
Deep as the depth of the living dead,
Measures of truth in unsaid song
Learned from the soul to haunt me long,
Song.
Love perpends each laudable
Thought of the soul made audible,
Said in gardens of bliss or pain:
Moonlight rays in drops of rain,
Feels the faith in its sleep awake,
Wish of the silent words that shake
Sleep.
If love I have had of thee thou hadst of me,
No loss was in giving it over;
Could I give aught but that I had of thee,
Being no more than thy lover?
And let it cease. When what befalls befalls,
You cannot love me less,
Loving me much now. Neither weeks nor walls,
With bitterest distress,
Shall all avail. Despair will find reprieve,
Though dark the soul be tossed,
In past possession of that love you grieve,
The love which you have lost.
Ponder the morning, or the midnight moon,
The wilding of the wold,
The morning slitting from night's brown cocoon
Wide wings of flaxen gold:
The moon that, had not darkness been before,
Had never shone to lead;
And think that, though you are, you are not poor,
Since you have loved indeed.
From flower to star read upward; you shall see
The purposes of loss,
Deep hierograms of gracious deity,
And comfort in your cross.
Sunday shall we ride together?
Not the root-rough, rambling way
Through the woods we went that day,
In the sultry summer weather,
Past the Methodist Camp-Meeting,
Where religion helped the hymn
Gather volume, and a slim
Minister with textful greeting
Welcomed us and still expounded.
From the service on the hill
We had rode three hills and still
Far away the singing sounded.
Nor that road through weed and berry
Drowsy days led me and you
To the old-time barbecue,
Where the country-side made merry.
Dusty vehicles together;
Darkies with the horses by
'Neath the soft Kentucky sky,
And a smell of bark and leather;
When you smiled, "Our modern tourney:
Gallantry and politics
Dinner, dance and intermix."
As we went the homeward journey
'Twixt hot chaparrals and thickets,
Heard brisk fiddles, scraping still,
Drone and thump the quaint quadrille,
Like a worried band of crickets. —
Neither road. The shady quiet
Of that way by beech and birch,
Winding to the ruined church
On the Fork that sparkles by it.
Where the silent Sundays listen
For the preacher whom we bring,
In our hearts to preach and sing
Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten.
Yes, to-morrow; when the morn,
Pentecost of flame, uncloses
Portals that the stars adorn,
Whence a golden presence throws his
Fiery swords and burning roses
At the wide wood's world of wall,
Spears of sparkle at each fall;
Then together let us ride
Down deep-wood cathedral places,
Where the pilgrim wild-flowers hide,
Praying Sabbath in their faces;
Where in truest untaught phrases,
Worship in each rhythmic word,
Sings no migratory bird…
Pearl on pearl the high stars dight
Jewels of divine devices
'Round the Afric throat of Night;
Where yon misty glimmer rises
Soon the white moon crystallizes
Out of darkness, like a spell. —
Late, 't is late. Till dawn, farewell.
PART III
Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
Careless in beauty of maturity;
The ripened roses 'round brown temples, she
Fulfils completion in a dreamy guess:
Now Time grants night the more and day the less;
The gray decides; and brown
Dim golds and reds in dulling greens express
Themselves and broaden as the year goes down.
Sadder the croft where, thrusting gray and high
Their balls of seeds, the hoary onions die,
Where, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie:
Deeper each wilderness;
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west; sadder the song
Of the wild red-bird in the leafage yellow,
Deeper and dreamier, aye!
Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone orchards where the cider-press
Drips