Part 2 (2/2)
(Sweet were the songs he sung.)
Love with us goes wandering still, (Heart, but his songs are sweet!) Suns may s.h.i.+ne, or the rains beat chill, What matter cold or heat?
Blue or grey, Love goes our way; (Summer follows his feet.)
Love, he has been a comrade true, (Heart, how the seasons fly!) Joy and Sorrow have found us too, Greeted and pa.s.sed us by; So Love stay, they may go their way; (And Love can never die.)
DEAD LOVE
Fold the hands, grown still and cold; Lay ye by The broken bow that shall feel his hold Nevermore, while the seasons fly.
Draw the shroud above his eyes, Love, that laughs an hour and dies.
Seek no more to entrance win At his gate; Silent now are the song and din, Jest and dance, that were there of late.
Never more shall he arise, Love, that laughs an hour and dies.
Listen not, for ye shall catch Nevermore The sound of his finger on the latch, Nor see him stand in the open door; Ne'er shall see, in any guise, Love, that laughs an hour and dies.
THE WIFE FROM THE SEA
I s.n.a.t.c.hed her from her home away-- From her great waters, cool and free, My sea-maid, in whose eyes there lay The depths and dangers of the sea.
I brought her where faint breezes sweep Through lanes walled in with hedges high, And sown with luscious gra.s.s and deep At ease the fatted pastures lie.
I gave her my poor cottage home, The tame face of the countryside-- Who knew the waves' withdrawing foam, The thunder of the bursting tide.
And day by day did I rejoice To see her sit beside my door, Nor knew that in her heart the voice Of ocean called forever more.
Until the grace I would not give Death gave. His mighty hand set free My wild sea-maid, that could not live Without her waters' liberty.
And I?--To me the fields are dear; The steadfast earth is home to me.
Yet night by night in dreams I hear Her spirit call me from the sea.
A STORM AT NIGHT
All night the waves broke in upon the sh.o.r.e Beneath my window, and I heard the rain With querulous, weak fingers, evermore Beating against the pane.
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