MY MARY
My Mary, O my Mary!
The simmer skies are blue:
The dawnin’ brings the dazzle,
An’ the gloamin’ brings the dew,—
The mirk o’ nicht the glory
O’ the moon, an’ kindles, too,
The stars that shift aboon the lift.—
But naething brings me you!
Where is it, O my Mary,
Ye are biding a’ the while?
I ha’ wended by your window—
I ha’ waited by the stile,
An’ up an’ down the river
I ha’ won for mony a mile,
Yet never found, adrift or drown’d,
Your lang-belated smile.
Is it forgot, my Mary,
How glad we used to be?—
The simmer-time when bonny bloomed
The auld trysting-tree,—
How there I carved the name for you,
An’ you the name for me;
An’ the gloamin’ kenned it only
When we kissed sae tenderly.
Speek ance to me, my Mary!—
But whisper in my ear
As light as ony sleeper’s breath,
An’ a’ my soul will hear;
My heart shall stap its beating,
An’ the soughing atmosphere
Be hushed the while I leaning smile
An’ listen to you, dear!
My Mary, O my Mary!
The blossoms bring the bees;
The sunshine brings the blossoms,
An’ the leaves on a’ the trees;
The simmer brings the sunshine
An’ the fragrance o’ the breeze,—
But O wi’out you, Mary,
I care naething for these!
We were sae happy, Mary!
O think how ance we said—
Wad ane o’ us gae fickle,
Or are o’ us lie dead,—
To feel anither’s kisses
We wad feign the auld instead,
An’ ken the ither’s footsteps
In the green grass owerhead.
My Mary, O my Mary!
Are ye dochter o’ the air,
That ye vanish aye before me
As I follow everywhere?—
Or is it ye are only
But a mortal, wan wi’ care,
Sin’ I search through a’ the kirkyird
An’ I dinna find ye there?
EROS
The storm of love has burst at last
Full on me: All the world, before,
Was like an alien, unknown shore
Along whose verge I laughing passed.—
But now—I laugh not any more,—
Bowed with a silence vast in weight
As that which falls on one who stands
For the first time on ocean sands,
Seeing and feeling all the great
Awe of the waves as they wash the lands
And billow and wallow and undulate.