"TO-DAY I MISS YOU"
To-day I miss you ... "Only for to-day,
Some little matter of hours and nothing more."
That at least the worldly-wise folk say,
Who've never waited for the opening door,
The greeting look, the known step on the floor;
Who've never missed a loved one like a lover.
To-day I miss you. What to-morrow brings
Is the other side of all the stars, God knows!
Only to have you here, now evening swings
Its quiet shadow round the globe again,
And in our talk of old familiar things,
And in familiar gestures, turn of brain,
Looks, tone of voice, I may discern again
That union from which alone love grows.
We'd close the curtains;—while the world outside,
Noisily autumn, makes a sense of peace
Deeper within,—open the bookcase wide
And take a book out; then another book,
And then another.... "Here's a favourite, look!
We cannot pass him." ... Then from reading cease,
Gossip and laugh, with finger in the page,
And challenge thought with thought, and mind with mind
Each speaking freely, that we might increase
Some knowledge to which, singly, we were blind.
So goes the evening. Side by side we stand,
Dear friends and brothers, till, a sudden pause,
Or kindly, almost careless touch of hands,
Swings us to face each other, and we feel
Those deepest stirrings of the human heart
Man has no name for yet, those changeless laws
Of more than mating—that eternal part
Our body is aware of, and our brain,
Unchallenging with reason, must receive,
That sense of intimate wonder!—Now again,
The blinds are drawn; lamp, books, chairs, all retain
Familiar aspects, but, you absent, leave
The room all empty, empty all the day.
"HOW SMALL THE THREAD THAT HOLDS UP HAPPINESS"
How small the thread that holds up happiness;
But one frail life between the dark and me,
Your life, dear love—and here I seem to see
You whimsically smile, that I confess
The whole round world, with its vast energy,
Its summers, and its sunshine, and its aims,
Its splendid hopes, the faith that unquenched, flames
—All sunk into the compass of you and me.
Yes, you are right, the single leaves that fall
Mar not the summer; do I think one leaf
Denudes a forest?—We are nought at all.
Yet the bereaved small bird within the tree
May break its heart above its nest for grief
—And perhaps this must happen, love, to me.