On a Fly-Leaf of Irving.
WELCOME art thou, O singer!
If thou dost know a song
That makes the long eve shorter
Because its joys are long.
Welcome art thou, tale-bearer,
If thou canst bear away
Part of the cares that burden
The dull and dreary day.
On a Fly-Leaf of Riley's "Afterwhiles."
UNTO him alone who strays
Sometimes through the yesterdays,
Lingering long in wood and field,
Is the meaning all revealed
Of these songs. Adown the rhymes
Runs a path to bygone times;
But 'tis found by those alone,
Who the fresh green hills have known,
And have felt the tender mood
Of the country solitude;
Who through lanes of pink peach blooms
Used to see the lilac's plumes
Nodding welcome by the door
Where the home-folks come no more.
Blest the singer, then, who leads
Back again through clover meads,
'Til old scenes we seem to see,
Fair as once they used to be.
Who can call from years long gone,
Friends we trusted, leaned upon;
For whose sake we learned to bless
Toilworn hands and homespun dress.
As he sings of them, and thus
Wafts the pure air back to us
Of the fields, there comes again
Childhood's faith in God and man.
Chiaro-Oscuro.
SOMEHOW I love to look at the picture I made of her,
Work of an idle time, the summer of life's long year;
For as I stand and gaze, dreaming of those lost days,
Almost it seems to me I can see her sitting here.
That is the way she sat, with her head a trifle raised,
Looking thoughtfully out at a scene I could never see.
Delicate color of rose dawning and dying down,
Flushing the rare sweet face as she listened or spoke to me.
Whitest light of the sky I showered on her upturned brow,
Gathered the darkest shades and brushed them into her hair,
Thinking the while I worked of the law that always sends
The deepest shadows to follow the high lights everywhere.
Now as I sit and gaze at the dream on the canvas caught,
Sadly the thought comes back, to torture with unbelief—
Why must it always be that the strong white light of love
Is followed forevermore by the deepest shadow of grief?