One Day & Another Part 3

There, pitiless, the ruined hand of death Should never reach. No bud, no thing should fade; All should be perfect, pure, and unafraid; And life serener than an angel's breath.

The days should move to music; wildly tame The nights should move to music and the stars; And morn and evening in their opal cars, Like heralds, banner G.o.d's eternal name.

O world! O life! desired and to be!

How shall we reach thee?--dark the way and dim.

--Give me your hand, love, let us follow him, Love with the mystery and the melody.

14

_He, observing the various flowers around them:_

Violets and anemones The surrendered hours Pour, as handsels, round the knees Of the Spring, who to the breeze Flings her myriad flowers.

Like to coins the sumptuous day Strews with blossoms golden Every furlong of his way,-- Like a Sultan gone to pray At a Kaaba olden.

And the night, with spark on spark, Clad in dim attire, Dots with Stars the haloed dark,-- As a priest around the Ark Lights his lamps of fire.

These are but the cosmic strings To the harp of Beauty, To that instrument which sings In our souls of love that brings Peace and faith and duty.

15

_She, seriously:_

Duty?--Comfort of the sinner And the saint!--when grief and trial Weigh us, and within our inner Selves,--responsive to love's viol,-- Hope's soft voice grows thin and thinner, It is kin to self-denial.

Self-denial!--through whose feeling We are gainer though we're loser; All the finer force revealing Of our natures. No accuser Is the conscience then, but healing Of the wound of which we're chooser.

Some one said no flower knoweth Of the fragrance it revealeth; Song, its soul that overfloweth, Never nightingale's heart feeleth-- Such the love the spirit groweth, Love unconscious if it healeth.

16

_He, after a pause, lightly:_

An elf there is who stables the hot Red wasp that stings on the apricot; An elf who rowels his spiteful bay Like a mote on a ray, away, away; An elf who saddles the hornet lean To din i' the ear o' the swinging bean; Who straddles, with cap c.o.c.ked all awry, The bottle-blue back o' the dragon-fly.

And this is the elf who sips and sips From clover-horns whence the perfume drips; And, drunk with dew, in the glimmering gloam Awaits the wild-bee's coming home; In ambush lies, where none may see, And robs the caravan b.u.mble-bee-- Gold bags of honey the bees must pay To the bandit elf of the fairy way.

Another ouphen the b.u.t.terflies know, Who paints their wings with the hues that glow On blossoms.--Squeezing from tubes of dew Pansy colors of every hue On his bloom's pied pallet, he paints the wings Of the b.u.t.terflies, moths, and other things.

This is the elf that the hollyhocks hear, Who dangles a brilliant in each one's ear; Teases at noon the pane's green fly, And lights at night the glow-worm's eye.

But the dearest elf, so the poets say, Is the elf who hides in an eye of gray; Who curls in a dimple and slips along The strings of a lute to a lover's song; Who smiles in her smile, and frowns in her frown, And dreams in the scent of her glove or gown; Hides and beckons as all may note In the bloom or the bow of a maiden's throat.

17

_She, standing among the flowers:_

Soft through the trees the night wind sighs, And swoons and dies.

Above, the stars hang wanly white; Here, through the dark, A drizzled gold, the fireflies Rain mimic stars in spark on spark.-- 'Tis time to part, to say good-night.

Good-night.

From fern to flower the night-moths cross At drowsy loss.

The moon drifts veiled through clouds of white; And pearly pale, A silver blur, through beds of moss, Their tiny moons the glow-worms trail.-- 'Tis time to part, to say good-night.

Good-night.

18

_He, at parting, as they proceed down the garden:_

You say you cannot wed me, now That roses and the June are here?

To your decision I must bow.-- Ah, well! 'tis just as well, my dear: We'll swear again each old love vow, And wait another year.

Another year of love with you!

Of dreams and doubts, of sun and rain!

When field and forest bloom anew, And locust cl.u.s.ters pelt the lane, When all the song-birds wed and woo, I'll not take "no" again.

Oft shall I lie awake and mark The hours by no clanging clock, But in the dim and distant dark The crowing of some punctual c.o.c.k; Then up as early as the lark To meet you by our rock.

The rock where first we met at tryst; Where first I wooed and won your love-- Remember how the moon and mist Made mystery of the heaven above As now to-night?--How first I kissed Your lips, you trembling like a dove?

So, then, you cannot wed me now That roses and the June are here, That warmth and fragrance weigh each bough?

And yet your reason is not clear.

Ah, well! We'll swear anew each vow, And wait another year.

PART II

EARLY SUMMER

_The cricket in the rose-bush hedge Sings by the vine-entangled gate; The slim moon slants a timid edge Of pearl through one low cloud of slate; Around dark door and window-ledge Like dreams the shadows wait.

And through the summer dusk she goes, On her white breast a crimson rose._

1

_She delays, meditating. A rainy afternoon._

Gray skies and the foggy rain Dripping from sullen eaves; Over and over again Dull drop of the trickling leaves; And the woodward-winding lane, And the hill with its shocks of sheaves One scarce perceives.

Shall I go in such wet weather By the lane or over the hill?-- Where the blossoming milkweed's feather The drops like diamonds fill; Where, draggled and drenched together, The ox-eyes rank the rill, To the old corn-mill.

The creek by now is swollen, And its foaming cascades sound; And the lilies, smeared with pollen, In the dam look dull and drowned.

'Tis a path I oft have stolen To the bridge that rambles round With willows bound.