Pike County Ballads and Other Poems Part 14

And when your eyes, so fair and free, In fearless beauty beamed on me, I knew the fatal die was thrown, My choice in life was gone.

And still with wild and tender art Your child-love touched my torpid heart, Gilding the blackness where it fell, Like sunlight over h.e.l.l.

In vain, in vain! my choice was gone!

Better to struggle on alone Than blot your pure life's blameless shine With cloudy stains of mine.

A vague regret, a troubled prayer, And then the future vast and fair Will tempt your young and eager eyes With all its glad surprise.

And I shall watch you, safe and far, As some late traveller eyes a star Wheeling beyond his desert sands To gladden happier lands.

LOVE'S DOUBT.

'Tis love that blinds my heart and eyes,-- I sometimes say in doubting dreams,-- The face that near me perfect seems Cold Memory paints in fainter dyes.

'Twas but love's dazzled eyes--I say-- That made her seem so strangely bright; The face I worshipped yesternight, I dread to meet it changed to-day.

As, when dies out some song's refrain, And leaves your eyes in happy tears, Awake the same fond idle fears,-- It cannot sound so sweet again.

You wait and say with vague annoy, "It will not sound so sweet again,"

Until comes back the wild refrain That floods your soul with treble joy.

So when I see my love again Fades the unquiet doubt away, While shines her beauty like the day Over my happy heart and brain.

And in that face I see no more The fancied faults I idly dreamed, But all the charms that fairest seemed, I find them, fairer than before.

LACRIMAS.

G.o.d send me tears!

Loose the fierce band that binds my tired brain, Give me the melting heart of other years, And let me weep again!

Before me pa.s.s The shapes of things inexorably true.

Gone is the sparkle of transforming dew From every blade of gra.s.s.

In life's high noon Aimless I stand, my promised task undone, And raise my hot eyes to the angry sun That will go down too soon.

Turned into gall Are the sweet joys of childhood's sunny reign; And memory is a torture, love a chain That binds my life in thrall.

And childhood's pain Could to me now the purest rapture yield; I pray for tears as in his parching field The husbandman for rain.

We pray in vain!

The sullen sky flings down its blaze of bra.s.s; The joys of life all scorched and withering pa.s.s; I shall not weep again.

ON THE BLUFF.

O grandly flowing River!

O silver-gliding River!

Thy springing willows shiver In the sunset as of old; They shiver in the silence Of the willow-whitened islands, While the sun-bars and the sand-bars Fill air and wave with gold.

O gay, oblivious River!

O sunset-kindled River!

Do you remember ever The eyes and skies so blue On a summer day that shone here, When we were all alone here, And the blue eyes were too wise To speak the love they knew?

O stern, impa.s.sive River!

O still, unanswering River!

The shivering willows quiver As the night-winds moan and rave.

From the past a voice is calling, From heaven a star is falling, And dew swells in the bluebells Above her hillside grave.

UNA.

In the whole wide world there was but one; Others for others, but she was mine, The one fair woman beneath the sun.

From her gold-flax curls' most marvellous shine Down to the lithe and delicate feet There was not a curve nor a waving line

But moved in a harmony firm and sweet With all of pa.s.sion my life could know.

By knowledge perfect and faith complete

I was bound to her,--as the planets go Adoring around their central star, Free, but united for weal or woe.

She was so near and Heaven so far-- She grew my heaven and law and fate, Rounding my life with a mystic bar

No thought beyond could violate.

Our love to fulness in silence nursed Grew calm as morning, when through the gate

Of the glimmering east the sun has burst, With his hot life filling the waiting air.

She kissed me once,--that last and first

Of her maiden kisses was placid as prayer.

Against all comers I sat with lance In rest, and, drunk with my joy, I sware

Defiance and scorn to the world's worst chance.

In vain! for soon unhorsed I lay At the feet of the strong G.o.d Circ.u.mstance--