We rode, we rode against the wind.
The countless lights along the town
Made the town blacker for their fire,
And you were always looking down.
To 'scape the blustering breath of March,
Or was it for your mind's disguise?
Still I could shut my eyes and see
The turquoise color of your eyes.
Surely your ermine furs were warm,
And warm your flowing cloak of red;
Was it the wild wind kept you thus
Pensive and with averted head?
I scarcely spoke, my words were swept
Like winged things in the wind's despite.
We rode, and with what shadow speed
Across the darkness of the night!
Without a word, without a look.
What was the charm and what the spell
That made one hour of life become
A memory ever memorable?
**** All craft, all labor, all desire,
All toil of age, all hope of youth
Are shadows from the fount of fire
And mummers of the truth.
How bloodless books, how pulseless art,
Vain kingly and imperial zeal,
Vain all memorials of the heart!
When Life itself is real!
We traced the golden clouds of spring,
We roved the beach, we walked the land.
What was the world? A Phantom thing
That vanished in your hand.
You were as quiet as the sky.
Your eyes were liquid as the sea.
And in that hour that passed us by
We lived eternally.
THE QUESTION
I
The sea moans and the stars are bright,
The leaves lisp 'neath a rolling moon.
I shut my eyes against the night
And make believe the time is June—
The June that left us over-soon.
This is the path and this the place
We sat and watched the moving sea,
And I the moonlight on your face.
We were not happy—woe is me,
Happiness is but memory!
It seemeth, now that you are gone,
My heart a measured pain doth keep:—
Are you now, as I am, alone?
Do you make merry, do you weep?
In whose arms are you now asleep?
THE ANSWER