The night had voices:
Laughter and singing of youth round the bonfires;
Purling of streams, and twitter of sleepless birds;
Yet all was peace, and joy, and life,
And mystery such as the Avon Bard
Did see and hear on a Midsummer night.
I was but a boy, and the names of the great
Were new to me, and yet not strange,—
I knew not why.
That day I had read about Hugo,
That he, the greatest of singers
In our own day, was dead;
I felt a heart-gripping sorrow,
And wept as over a friend.
It seemed that his spirit was there,
In the dreams of that Saint John’s night,
That all the fairies and flowers and streams
Were greeting him with a love that had sadness,
And yet which rose on the wings of gladness,
Up to the stars.
My soul did feel it, I know not how,
That he was there, a part of it all,
The Highpriest of Nature, Romance and Life.
TO A FRIEND
In the stillness of the evening,
When the dew is on the grass,
And the forest stands a-dreaming,
’Round the moonlit lake of glass,
Do I hear a sighing whisper,
As when happy lovers part,
It is thine I hear, my lady,
Rising from all nature’s heart.
When the autumn winds are blowing,
And the yellow leaves fall down,
Whirled upon the river, flowing
To the mighty, distant sound,—
Then I hear thy soul a-weeping,
For the love that is no more,
For the life now in God’s keeping,
On a far-off, unknown shore.
When the fields and hills are covered
With a blanket of pure snow,
And the streams, where oft we hovered,
Unseen ’neath the thick ice flow,
Then I know thy life lies hidden
Under sorrow’s wintry plaid,
But the hope, which seems forbidden,
In its course cannot be staid.
When in spring new life is risen
From the grave with songs of joy,
Then thy soul shall leave its prison,
And its broken harp employ,
Then again that sighing whisper,
Charged with love and happiness,
I shall hear amid the woodlands
Which the dreamy lake caress.