Dear, you are like the summer dusk to me,
The summer dusk when all the world seems still;
When purple shadows creep along the hill,
And birds are softly crooning in each tree.
You are the gentle-cool-eyed mystery
Of twilight hours. Sometime I think you will
Melt from me out into the dark, until
You turn to star-shine, silvering the sea.
Dear, even when your head is on my breast,
You seem no nearer than a moonbeam thrown
Across my heart. Your fingers have caressed
My hair so lightly that I scarce have known
Their pressure. You are like that time when rest
Steals up so softly that one feels alone!
AT FIRST SIGHT
Seeing you once, how can I forget
That our eyes have smiled and our hands have met?
That our souls have known and our hearts have cried,
Though our lips were dumb.
Ah, the world is wide,
And love there is for us both to know—
But my eyes were dim as I watched you go!
You may wander far, you may come no more,
But you hold the key to the inmost door
Of my heart of hearts!
For our hands have met,
And our eyes have smiled, and I CAN'T FORGET!
FIVE SONNETS
I. THE COMING
I know that Love will come to me, some day,
Though I have never loved, or looked on Love;
I know that Love will wait beside the way
And smile at me. The tender skies above
Will be alight with all the joy of spring,
And flowers will life their heads above the earth,
And some far bird will stay its flight and sing,
And fill the land with silver throated mirth.
I know that Love, at last, with smiling eyes,
Will pause beside my half-swung cottage door,
And I will lift my gaze, without surprise,
To see his shadow dance across the floor.
I know that Love will come to me, some day,
When springtime blossoms, shyly, into May!
II. REALIZATION
I know that you are not the one that I
Should fall in love with, for your eyes are blind
To all the things that make my world the kind
I want to live in. Often, when I cry
At some vague beauty that has caught my eye,
You laugh! You cannot dream the dreams I find,
In forest places where dim pathways wind
Up to the Heaven-land so far and high.
I know that I should never learn to care,
And yet, sometimes the blueness of your eyes
Can make me half forget the smiling skies....
And, when I see the sunlight on your hair,
I do not stop to reason, dear, for oh—
My heart throbs faster, and I know—I know!