A Valentine—Now if I might
But somehow tempt her to alight—
I mean my Muse—I’d try to say
Some word to cheer thy heart, to-day.
I know the meaning they attach
To Valentines: but then I’ll scratch
That off, and write, as to a friend—
’Tis fair, if so we comprehend.
How strange, that certain days and hours,
That certain trees and certain flowers,
Alone possess, as ’twere, a key
To certain rooms in memory.
When but a child, they used to say
That birds, like lovers, went away
In search of mates: and even now
I dimly can remember how
Their words I doubted, till one day
Our purple pigeon flew away,
Returned at night, and by his side
Fluttered his little snow-white bride.
And ne’er this day comes ’round to me
But flutters in my memory
The purple and the snow-white dove
Cooing their tender notes of love.
Some word to cheer thee, did I say?
Words—what are words? As helpless they
As blinded eyes to lead the feet
O’er tangled pathways, did they meet
Not some felt need, or if they be
Not warm with loving sympathy.
If magic were my art, and I
Could banish from thine inner sky
All clouds of sorrow and of pain,
I would not do it. Following rain
Is brighter sky; at sorrow’s fire
Our joys are tempered. Mounting higher
Than human wish is human need,
And wrapped beneath the husks of creed
Is what we think, and feel, and know,
Of the deep things of God. And so
My best and only wish shall be
That thou mayst solve life’s mystery.
A SPRING REVERIE
Winter has at last unlocked the portals of his icy castle and ushered into our presence the very queen of all the seasons. Let us fling open the doorways of our hearts and give a generous welcome. How silently she moves among us, and yet our finer ear may hear her in the springing grass and opening blossoms. We feel her magic touch in everything about us. She whispers, and the slumbering earth awakes to new life and beauty. Would we might sing her praises with hearts as full as the happy, joyous birds.
I wonder, if we would, we could not make our daily lives fuller of praises and thanksgiving-songs; clothe wearying, unlovely care, with beauty? And I wonder, too, if we are not ourselves to blame, if in the pleasant walks of life we gather not enough of sunshine up to last through cloudy weather? And yet, we must dream our own dreams and live our own lives.
The hearts of little children drink in the spring sunshine as freely, even, as the birds and flowers. And are not their voices sweeter than the song of birds and their lives dearer than all the blossoms?
A maiden sits and dreams, and in her fancy she weaves the golden meshes of a nest that will one day be her own, and if her morning and evening carol shall be sweeter than the bird’s it is not strange, for is not her nest dearer and her love deeper?
In the spring sunshine a mother muses, and her thoughts have flown backward. She sits ’mid blasted buds and voiceless birds, in a springtime of long ago; and though her whole pathway is strewn with flowers, it is not so much to her as to know that on those little graves the violets are come again. She tends them with a loving care, for they speak precious promises unto her soul.
The aged couple number over and over again the many springtimes their lives have known in light and shadow. They drink not in the full sunshine of these delicious days, for their nest and nestlings are all gone, and they are waiting for a more glorious springtime yet to come—waiting for eternal sunshine and perpetual blossoms.