They brought him on a litter; and the day
Was bright and beautiful. It seemed that May
In woodland rambles had forgot her path
Of season, and, disrobing for a bath,
By the autumnal waters of some bay,
With her white nakedness had conquered Wrath.
Far otherwise she wished it: wind and rain;
The sky, one gray commiserative pain;
Sleet, and the stormy drift of frantic leaves;
To match the misery that each perceives
Aches in her hand-clutched bosom, and is plain
In eyes and mouth and all her form that grieves.
Theirs, a mute meeting of the lips; she stooped
And kissed him once: one long, dark side-lock drooped
And brushed against the bandage of his breast;
With feeble hands he held it and caressed;
Then all his happiness in one look grouped,
Saying, “Now I am home, I crave but rest.”
Once it was love! but then the battle killed
All that sweet nonsense of his youth, and filled
His heart with sterner passion.—Ah, well! peace
Must balm its pain with patience; whose surcease
Means reconcilement; e’en as God hath willed,
With war or peace who shapes His ends at ease.—
What else for these but, where their mortal lot
Of weak existence drags rent ends, to knot
The frail unravel up!—while love (afraid
Time will increase the burthen on it laid),
Seeks consolation, that consoleth not,
In toil and prayer, waiting what none evade.
VI
THE MESSAGE
Long shadows toward the east: and in the west
A blaze of garnet sunset, wherein rolled
One cloud like some great gnarly log of gold;
Each gabled casement of the farm seemed dressed
In ghosts of roses blossoming manifest.
And she had brought his letter there to read,
There on the porch, that faced the locust glade;
To watch the summer sunset burn and fade,
And breathe the twilight scent of wood and weed,
Forget all care and her soul’s hunger feed.
And on his face her fancy mused a while:
“Dark hair, dark eyes.—And now he has a beard
Dark as his hair.”—She smiled; yet almost feared
It changed him so she could not reconcile
Her heart to that which hid his lips and smile.