Oh! the sky free and wide,
With all the cloud-banners flung out in it
Its singing wind blows
As a grand river flows,
And I swim down its rhythmical tide,
And still the horizon spreads wide,
With the birds' and the poets' songs like a shout in it!
Oh life, thou art sweet
Sweet—sweet to the inmost heart of thee!
I drink with my eyes
Thy limitless skies,
And I feel with the rapturous beat
Of my wings thou art sweet—
And I,—I am alive, and a part of thee!
AN IDYL OF THE MAY.
In the beautiful May weather,
Lapsing soon into June;
On a golden, golden day
Of the green and golden May,
When our hearts were beating tune
To the coming feet of June,
Walked we in the woods together.
Silver fine
Gleamed the ash buds through the darkness
of the pine,
And the waters of the stream
Glance and gleam,
Like a silver-footed dream—
Beckoning, calling,
Flashing, falling,
Into shadows dun and brown
Slipping down,
Calling still—Oh hear! Oh follow!
Follow—follow!
Down through glen and ferny hollow,
Lit with patches of the sky,
Shining through the trees so high,
Hand in hand we went together,
In the golden, golden weather
Of the May;
While the fleet wing of the swallow
Flashing by, called—follow—follow!
And we followed through the day:
Speaking low—
Speaking often not at all
To the brooklet's crystal call,
With our lingering feet and slow—
Slow, and pausing here and there
For a flower, or a fern,
For the lovely maiden-hair;
Hearing voices in the air,
Calling faintly down the burn.
Still the streamlet slid away,
Singing, smiling, dimpling down
To a mossy nook and brown,
Under bending boughs of May;
Where the nodding wind-flower grows,
And the coolwort's lovely pink,
Brooding o'er the brooklet's brink
Dips and blushes like a rose.
And the faint smell of the mould.
Sweeter than the musky scent
Of the garden's manifold
Perfumes into perfect blent.
Lights and sounds and odours stole,
In the golden, golden weather—
Heart and thought, and life and soul,
Stole away,
In that merry, merry May,
Wandering down the burn together.
Ah Valentine—my Valentine!
Heard I, with my hand in thine,
Grave and low, and sweet and slow,
As the wood bird over head,
Brooding notes, half sung half said,—
"In the world so bleak and wide,
Hearts make Edens of their own;
Wilt thou linger by my side,—
Wilt thou live for me alone,
Making bright the winter weather,
Thou and I and love together?"
"Yea," I said, "for thee alone,"—
Shading eyes lest they confess
Too much their own happiness,
With the happy tears o'erflown.
Gravely thou—"The world is not
Like this ferny hollow—
Through a rougher, thornier lot
Wilt thou bravely follow?"
Still the brook, with softer flow,
Called, "Oh hear! Oh follow!"
"Aye," I said, with bated breath,
"Where thou goest, I will go;
Holding still thy stronger hand,
Through the dreariest desert land,
True, till death."