I WILL forget those days of mingled bliss
And dear delicious pain,—will cast from me
All dreams of what I know can never be,
Even the remembrance of that parting kiss.
I knew that some day it would come to this
In spite of all our sworn fidelity,
That I must banish even memory,
And, sorrowing, learn to say, nor say amiss
I will forget.
I register this vow, and am content
That it be so. Ah me!—yet, if the door
Shut on our heaven might be asunder rent
Even now, and I could see the way we went,
I might retract my vow, and say no more
I will forget.
RONDEAU.—WHEN SUMMER COMES.
WHEN summer comes, and when o'er hill and lea
The sun's strong wooing glow hath patiently
Shed o'er the earth long days his golden dower,
And then, by force of his own loving power,
Drawn the hard frost, and left it passive, free
To give forth all its sweets untiringly,
Shall not the day rise fair for thee and me,
And all life seem but as an opening flower
When summer comes?
The days move slowly, young hearts yearn to be
Together always, cannot brook to see
Their love-days pass, and void each sunny hour,
Yet may we smile, e'en when fate's storm-clouds lower,
Waiting fulfilment of our hearts' decree
When summer comes.
RONDEAU.—IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
IT might have been so different a year
To what has been; the summer's guileless play
Not all a jest, comes back to me to-day
In added sweetness, and provokes a tear.
Strange pictures rise, pass on, and disappear.
Drawn from your tender words of yesterday
When, looking in my eyes in the old way
You told me of your life, how passing dear
It might have been.
Useless to dream, more useless to regret!
We might have lived and loved, nor lost the glow
Of Love's first sweet intensity;—to let
These foolish fancies die I strive,—and yet
I still must count it happiness to know
It might have been.