II.
Who art thou, in wind and darkness and soft rain
Thyself that robest, that bendest in sighing pines
To whisper thy truth? that usest for signs
A hurried glimpse of the moon, the glance of a star
In the rifted sky?
Who art thou, that with thee I
Woo and am wooed?
That, robing thyself in darkness and soft rain,
Choosest my chosen solitude,
Coming so far
To tell thy secret again,
As a mother her child on her folding arm,
Of a winter night by a flickering fire,
Telleth the same tale o’er and o’er
With gentle voice, and I never tire,
So imperceptibly changeth the charm,
As Love on buried ecstasy buildeth his tower,
Like as the stem that beareth the flower
By trembling is knit to power.
Ah! long ago
In thy first rapture I renounced my lot,
The vanity, the despondency, and the woe,
And seeking thee to know,
Well was’t for me, and evermore
I am thine, I know not what.
III.
For me thou seekest ever, me wondering a day
In the eternal alternations, me
Free for a stolen moment of chance
To dream a beautiful dream
In the everlasting dance
Of speechless worlds, the unsearchable scheme,
To me thou findest the way,
Me and whomsoe’er
I have found my dream to share
Still with thy charm encircling; even to-night
To me and my love in darkness and soft rain
Under the sighing pines thou comest again,
And staying our speech with mystery of delight,
Of the kiss that I give a wonder thou makest,
And the kiss that I take thou takest.
WINTER NIGHTFALL.
The day begins to droop,—
Its course is done;
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.
The hazy darkness deepens,
And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
The homing wain.
An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
In the lowering sky.
The soaking branches drip,
And all night through
The dropping will not cease
In the avenue.
A tall man there in the house
Must keep his chair:
He knows he will never again
Breathe the spring air.