Divided Hand in hand, while the sun peered over, We lapped the grass on that youngling spring; III A dappled sky, a world of meadows, Flit on the beck; for her long grass parteth As hair from a maid's bright eyes blown back: And, lo, the sun like a lover darteth His flattering smile on her wayward track. Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather The beck grows wider, the hands must sever. He prays, "Come over,"-I may not follow; IV A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer, A little pain when the beck grows wider; 949 No backward path; ah! no returning; No second crossing that ripple's flow; "Come to me now, for the west is burning; Come ere it darkens."—"Ah, no! ah, no!" Then cries of pain, and arms outreaching,- The loud beck drowns them: we walk, and weep. V A yellow moon in splendor drooping, A tired queen with her state oppressed, The desert heavens have felt her sadness; We two walk on in our grassy places On either marge of the moonlit flood, With the moon's own sadness in our faces, Where joy is withered, blossom and bud, VI A shady freshness, chafers whirring; A cloud to the eastward snowy as curds. Bare grassy slopes, where kids are tethered, A rose-flush tender, a thrill, a quiver, Divided Broad and white, and polished as silver, And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties. Glitters the dew, and shines the river, And wave their hands for a mute farewell. A braver swell, a swifter sliding; The river hasteth, her banks recede. Stately prows are rising and bowing The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair. While, O my heart! as white sails shiver, And clouds are passing, and banks stretch wide, How hard to follow, with lips that quiver, That moving speck on the far-off side. Farther, farther; I see it, know it My eyes brim over, it melts away: Only my heart to my heart shall show it As I walk desolate day by day. VIII And yet I know past all doubting, truly,- And as I walk by the vast calm river, I say, "Thy breadth and thy depth forever 951 Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me." Jean Ingelow [1820-1897] MY PLAYMATE THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, The blossoms drifted at our feet, For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom. She kissed the lips of kith and kin, She left us in the bloom of May: The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more. I walk, with noiseless feet, the round Of uneventful years; Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring She lives where all the golden year There haply with her jeweled hands My Playmate The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The lilies blossom in the pond, I wonder if she thinks of them, I see her face, I hear her voice: What cares she that the orioles build O playmate in the golden time! The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago. And still the pines of Ramoth wood 953 John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892] |