The Rainbow and the Rose Part 2

How should I learn to bear Our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air, Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn, When only in a picture these appear-- These, once alive, and always over-dear?

Ah--think again: the rose you used to wear Must still be more than other roses be The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me!

For in my acres is no plot of ground Whereon could any garden site be found, I have but little skill To water weed and till And make the desert blossom like the rose; Yet our old garden knows If I have loved its ways and walks and kept The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.

Yet--if you must--go now: Go, with my blessing filling both your hands, And, mid the desert sands Which life drifts deep round every garden wall, Make your new festival Of bud and blossom--red rose and green leaf.

No blight born of my grief Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart's prayer Shall draw down blessings on you from the air, And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree Shall serve you when you walk no more with me In garden ways; and when with her you tread The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead And when she asks, "How did you come to know The secrets of the ways these green things grow?"

Then you will answer--and I, please G.o.d, hear, "I had another garden once, my dear".

SONG.

I HEAR the waves to-night Piteously calling, calling Though the light Of the kind moon is falling, Like kisses, on the sea That calls for sunshine, dear, as my soul calls for thee.

I see the sea lie gray Wrinkling her brows in sorrow, Hear her say:-- "Bright love of yesterday, return to-morrow, Sun, I am thine, am thine!"

Oh sea, thy love will come again, but what of mine?

RENUNCIATION.

ROSE of the desert of my heart, Moon of the night that is my soul, Thou can'st not know how sweet thou art, Nor what wild tides thy beams control.

For all thy heart a garden is, Thy soul is like a dawn of May.

And garden and dawn might both be his, Who from them both must turn away.

Oh, garden of the Spring's delight!

Oh, dewy dawn of perfect noon!

I will not pluck thy roses white Or warm thy May-time into June.

I can but bless thee, moon and rose, And journey far and very far To where the night no moonbeam shows, To where no happy roses are!

III.

THE VEIL OF MAYA.

SWEET, I have loved before. I know This longing that invades my days; This shape that haunts life's busy ways I know since long and long ago.

This starry mystery of delight That floats across my eager eyes, This pain that makes earth Paradise, These magic songs of day and night--

I know them for the things they are: A pa.s.sing pain, a longing fleet, A shape that soon I shall not meet, A fading dream of veil and star.

Yet, even as my lips proclaim The wisdom that the years have lent, Your absence is joy's banishment, And life's one music is your name.

I love you to my heart's hid core: Those other loves? how should one learn From marshlights how the great fires burn?

Ah, no! I never loved before!

SONG.

THE sunshine of your presence lies On the glad garden of my heart And bids the leaves of silence part To show the flowers to your dear eyes, And flower on flower blooms there and dies And still new buds awakened spring, For sunshine makes the garden wise, To know the time for blossoming.

Night is no time for blossoming, Your garden then dreams otherwise, Of vanished Summer, vanished Spring, And how the dearest flower first dies.

Yet from your ministering eyes Though night hath drawn me far apart On the still garden of my heart The moonlight of your memory lies.

TO VERA, WHO ASKED A SONG.

IF I only had time!

I could make you a rhyme.

But my time is kept flying By smiling and sighing And living and dying for you.

The song-seed, I sow it, I water and hoe it, But never can grow it.

Ah, traitress, you know it!

What is a poor poet to do?

Ah, let me take breath!

I am harried to death By the loves and the graces That crowd where your face is That lurk in your laces and throng.

Call them off for a minute, Once let me begin it The devil is in it If I can not spin it As sweet as a linnet, your song!

THE POET TO HIS LOVE.

ALL the flight of thoughts here, shy, bold, scared, intrusive, Fluttering in the sun, between the green and blue, Wheeling, whirling, poising, lovely and elusive, How to cage the flying thoughts, my winged delight, for you?

Set a springe of rhyme, and hope to catch them in it?

Strew my love as grain to lure them to the snare?

Watch the hours built up, slow minute piled on minute?

Still the wide sky guards their flight, and still the cage is bare.

Gleam of hovering feathers, brushing me to flout me!

Wings, be weary! Rest! Who loves you more than I?

Caught? Oh fluttering pinions whitening air about me!

Rustling wings, and distant flight, and empty cage and sky!

THE MAIDEN'S PRAYER.

SPRING, pretty Spring, what treasure do you bring to me?

Green gra.s.s and b.u.t.tercups, cherry-bloom and may?

Sunshine to be glad with me, and little birds to sing to me?

Warm nests to call me along the woodland way?

Spring, happy Spring, what wonder will you do for me?

Light the tulip lanterns, and set the furze a-fire?

Fill your sky with sails of cloud on waves of living blue for me?

Show me green cornfields and budding of the briar?