A Sigh The sweet, sweet days when our love was new, Blest or wretched, fettered or free, Why should I care how your life may be, Or whether you wander by land or sea? Ever and hopelessly. Oh, how often at day's decline I pushed from my window the curtaining vine, Flashed from your heart to mine. Once more the starlight is silvering all; But summers will vanish and years will wane, My heart is heavy, my heart is old, The window is dark and the night is cold, 991 Elizabeth Akers [1832-1911] A SIGH It was nothing but a rose I gave her,— Nothing but a rose Any wind might rob of half its savor, When she took it from my trembling fingers With a hand as chill Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers, Withered, faded, pressed between the pages, Crumpled fold on fold, Once it lay upon her breast, and ages Cannot make it old! Harriet Prescott Spofford [1835 HEREAFTER LOVE, when all the years are silent, vanished quite and laid to rest, When you and I are sleeping, folded breathless breast to breast, When no morrow is before us, and the long grass tosses o'er us, And our grave remains forgotten, or by alien footsteps pressed Still that love of ours will linger, that great love enrich the earth, Sunshine in the heavenly azure, breezes blowing joyous mirth; Fragrance fanning off from flowers, melody of summer showers, Sparkle of the spicy wood-fires round the happy autumn hearth. That's our love. But you and I, dear-shall we linger with it yet, Mingled in one dew-drop, tangled in one sunbeam's golden net On the violet's purple bosom, I the sheen, but you the blos som, Stream on sunset winds, and be the haze with which some hill is wet? Endymion 993 Or, beloved-if ascending--when we have endowed the world With the best bloom of our being, whither will our way be whirled, Through what vast and starry spaces, toward what awful, holy places, With a white light on our faces, spirit over spirit furled? Only this our yearning answers: wheresoe'er that way defile, Not a film shall part us through the eons of that mighty while, In the fair eternal weather, even as phantoms still together, Floating, floating, one forever, in the light of God's great smile. Harriet Prescott Spofford [1835 ENDYMION THE apple trees are hung with gold, The sheep lie bleating in the fold, I know he will come back to me. O rising moon! O Lady moon! Be you my lover's sentinel, You cannot choose but know him well, For he is shod with purple shoon, You cannot choose but know my love, For he a shepherd's crook doth bear, And he is soft as any dove, And brown and curly is his hair. The turtle now has ceased to call Upon her crimson-footed groom, Sleeps in the lily-bell, and all The violet hills are lost in gloom. O risen moon! O holy moon! The rushlight glimmers in the Farm. The falling dew is cold and chill, Even the tired daffodil Has closed its gilded doors, and still My lover comes not back to me. False moon! False moon! O waning moon! The shepherd's crook, the purple shoon? Why wear that veil of drifting mist? Ah! thou hast young Endymion, Thou hast the lips that should be kissed! Oscar Wilde [1856-1900] "LOVE IS A TERRIBLE THING" I WENT out to the farthest meadow, And I said unto the earth, "Hold me,' And I begged the little leaves to lean Then to the stars I told my tale: "And oh, I know that I shall return, But let me lie first mid the unfeeling fern; The Ballad of the Angel "For there is a flame that has blown too near, And there is a name that has grown too dear, And there is a fear." 995 And to the still hills and cool earth and far sky I made moan, "The heart in my bosom is not my own! "Oh, would I were free as the wind on the wing; Love is a terrible thing!" Grace Fallow Norton [18 THE BALLAD OF THE ANGEL "WHO is it knocking in the night, "Oh, long ago and long ago I cast you forth," he said, Your laughing mouth too red, "Now mind you with what bitter words "I bade you back to that fair Hell From whence your breath you drew, And with great blows I broke my heart "Yea, from the grasp of your white hands And have I not climbed near to God "Ah, man,―ah, man! 'twas my two hands |