All spring through they falter and follow,
Wander, and beckon the roving tide,
Wheel and float with the veering swallow,
Lift you a voice from the blue hillside.
Marian Drury, Marian Drury,
How are the marshes full of the rain!
April over the Norland now
Bugles for rapture, and rouses pain,—
Halts before the forsaken dwelling,
Where in the twilight, too spent to roam,
Love, whom the fingers of death are quelling,
Cries you a cheer from the Norland home.
Marian Drury, Marian Drury,
How are the marshes filled with you!
Grand Pre dreams of your coming home,—
Dreams while the rainbirds all night through,
Far in the uplands calling to win you,
Tease the brown dusk on the marshes wide;
And never the burning heart within you
Stirs in your sleep by the roving tide.
Bliss Carman [1861-1929]
LOVE'S ROSARY
All day I tell my rosary
For now my love's away:
To-morrow he shall come to me
About the break of day;
A rosary of twenty hours,
And then a rose of May;
A rosary of fettered flowers,
And then a holy-day.
All day I tell my rosary,
My rosary of hours:
And here's a flower of memory,
And here's a hope of flowers,
And here's an hour that yearns with pain
For old forgotten years,
An hour of loss, an hour of gain,
And then a shower of tears.