A SONG.
In the ruddy heart of the sunset,
Fading and fading still,
A planet throbs and smoulders,
Over the sapphire hill.
A mist steals up from the marshes,
Spreading tender and bright;
A heron floats from his haunt in the reeds,
Through the ruby light.
The elm-trees towered with shadow
Seem dripping and cool with dew;
There’s a sigh in the cedar covert,
But never a breeze comes through.
A thrush keeps ringing and ringing—
Ringing—now he is still,
There’s a starry light in a window
On the dark, dark hill.
The home that’s far away
Comes stealing back to me,
With the calling of the thrushes
In the bonny birch-tree.
My eyes are full of tears
For to-day and yesterday,
For the yearning and the yearning,
And the heart that’s far away.
SONG.
October 3rd, 1893.
Sorrow is come like a swallow to nest,
Winging him up from the wind and the foam;
Mine is the heart that he loves the best,
He dreams of it when he dreams of home.
Strange! in the daylight off he flies,
Swift to the south away to the sea;
But when in the west the ruby dies,
With the growing stars he comes back to me.
With the salt, cool wind in his wing,
And the rush of tears that tingle and start,
With a throb at the throat so he cannot sing,
He nestles him into my lonely heart.
And he tells me of something I cannot name,
Something the sea with the sea-wind sings,
That somehow he and love are the same,
That they float and fly with the same swift wings.
I cherish and cherish my timid guest,
For oh, he has grown so dear to me
That my heart would break if he left his nest,
And dwelt in the strange land down by the sea.