Volume Ii Part 115 (1/2)

The blossoms drifted at our feet, The orchard birds sang clear; The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year.

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 laid her hand in mine: What more could ask the bashful boy Who fed her father's kine?

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 And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go.

There haply with her jeweled hands She smooths her silken gown,-- No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems,-- If ever the pines of Ramoth wood Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice: Does she remember mine?

And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine?

What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours,-- That other laps with nuts are filled, And other hands with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time!

Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean.

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 Are moaning like the sea,-- The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee!

John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892]

A FAREWELL

With all my will, but much against my heart, We two now part.

My Very Dear, Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.

It needs no art, With faint, averted feet And many a tear, In our opposed paths to persevere.

Go thou to East, I West.

We will not say There's any hope, it is so far away.

But, O, my Best, When the one darling of our widowhead, The nursling Grief Is dead, And no dews blur our eyes To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies, Perchance we may, Where now this night is day, And even through faith of still averted feet, Making full circle of our banishment, Amazed meet; The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet Seasoning the termless feast of our content With tears of recognition never dry.

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

DEPARTURE