THE blue wistaria hangs with bloom
The Place of Memories far away.
My heart has ached with it today—
The blue wistaria is in bloom.
And one may pass so near, so near,
With half-remembering eyes and cold,
Where quickening with the budding year
It clusters perfect as of old;
And one at sight of wizened sprays,
Reluctant in an alien spring,
Must feel the sharp, unblunted sting,
The pang of unforgotten days.
MY NOOK[6]
OH, half way up the hill it was, where one might sit leaf-hidden,
And stare across the canyoned depths to distant miles of blue;
Upon the little path to it no foot might step unbidden.
It was my nook, and mine alone, and not another knew.
And when my doll was sawdust, or my little hopes were fated,
Or all my world was shaken by a little idol’s fall,
Up to my dear retreat I’d climb, with grief or anger weighted,
And, hands behind fern-pillowed head, straightway forget it all.
With tears yet damp upon my cheeks I’d fall to castle-building
(The careless linnets fluttered near a little maid so still),
And all the gorgeous tints I knew, and all the wealth of gilding,
Were lavished on the future that I summoned there at will.
“When one is small the troubles come, and then the tears must follow;
When one is small one finds it good to run and cry alone,
But I shall laugh to think that once I found my world so hollow—
I shall not need this little nook,” I thought, “when I am grown.”
Now heart whose voice I drown by day to hear in hours of waking,
Now eyes whose tears must burn the more because they may not flow,
From sight of face or sound of speech if I could bear your aching,
And bury it deep-hidden in the ferns of long ago!
But oh! the pensive little ghost among her visions sitting
Would view her weeping Future with so piteous surprise!
No, I must leave her in her nook to dream her dreams unwitting—
I could not take my trouble there, I could not meet her eyes.
WHEN PLAINTIVELY AND NEAR THE CRICKET SINGS
NOW evening comes. Now stirs my discontent....
Oh, ache of smallest, unforgotten things!
How sharp you are when day and dark are blent,
When beetles hurry by with vibrant wings,
And plaintively and near the cricket sings.