He sometimes sighs, when far away
The low red sun makes fair the west,
Yet here he lingers many a day.
Thrice blest of all men am I! yea,
Although of all unworthiest;
I did not dream that Love would stay,
Yet here he lingers many a day.
Graham R. Tomson.
A BLUSH AT FAREWELL.
HER tears are all thine own! how blest thou art!
Thine, too, the blush which no reserve can bind;
Thy farewell voice was as the stirring wind
That floats the rose-bloom; thou hast won her heart;
Dear are the hopes it ushers to thy breast;
She speaks not—but she gives her silent bond;
And thou mayst trust it, asking nought beyond
The promise, which as yet no words attest;
Deep in her bosom sinks the conscious glow,
And deep in thine! and I can well foresee,
If thou shalt feel a lover’s jealousy
For her brief absence, what a ruling power
A bygone blush shall prove! until the hour
Of meeting, when thy next love-rose shall blow.
Charles Tennyson Turner.
THE KISS OF BETROTHAL.
WHEN lovers’ lips from kissing disunite
With sound as soft as mellow fruitage breaking,
They loathe to leave what was so sweet in taking,
So fraught with breathless magical delight;
The scent of flowers is long before it fade,
Long dwells upon the gale the Vesper-tone,
Far floats the wake the lightest skiff has made,
The closest kiss when once imprest, is gone;
What marvel, then, that each so closely kisseth?
Sweet is the fourfold touch—the living seal—
What marvel then, with sorrow each dismisseth
This thrilling pledge of all they hope and feel?
While on their lingering steps the shadows steal,
And each true heart beats as the other wisheth.
Charles Tennyson Turner.
THE PARTING-GATE.
IN that old beech-walk, now bestrewn with mast,
And roaring loud—they linger’d long and late;
Harsh was the clang of the last homeward gate
That latch’d itself behind them, as they pass’d—
Then kiss’d and parted. Soon her funeral knell
Toll’d from a foreign clime; he did not talk
Nor weep, but shudder’d at that stern farewell;
’Twas the last gate in all their lovers’-walk
Without the kiss beyond it! Was it good
To leave him thus, alone with his sad mood
In that dear footpath, haunted by her smile?
Where they had laugh’d and loiter’d, sat and stood?
Alone in life! alone in Moreham wood!
Through all that sweet, forsaken, forest mile!
Charles Tennyson Turner.
IRISH LOVE SONG.
WOULD God I were the tender apple-blossom,
Floating and falling from the twisted bough,
To lie and faint within your silken bosom,
As that does now!