THE QUARREL.
Come down, my dear, from this high, wind-swept hill,
Where the wild plovers scream against the sky;
Down in the valley everything is still—
We also will be silent, you and I.
Come down, and hold my hand as we go down.
A gleam of sun has dyed the west afar;
The lights come out down in the little town,
'Neath the first glimmer of the evening star.
Did my heart forge the bitter words I said?
Did your heart breed those bitterer replies—
Spoken with plovers wheeling overhead
In the gray pallor of the cheerless skies?
Is it worth while to quarrel and upbraid,
Life being so little and love so great a thing?
The price of all life's follies has been paid
When we, true lovers, fall to quarrelling.
Here is the churchyard; swing the gate and pass
Where the sharp needles of the pines are shed.
Tread here between the mounds of flowered grass;
Tread softly over these forgotten dead.
We are alive, and here—O love! O wife!
While life is ours, and we are yours and mine,
How dare we crush the blossom of our life?
How dare we spill love's sacramental wine?
Kiss me! Forget! We two are living now,
And life is all too short for love, my dear.
When one of us beneath these flowers lies low,
The other will remember we kissed here.
Some one some day will come here all alone
And look out on the desolated years,
With bitter tears of longing for the one
Who will not then be here to dry the tears!