Fold me so close I scarce can breathe;
And kiss me, for, lo, above, beneath,
The blue sky fades, and the green grass dries,
And the sunshine goes from my lips and eyes.
O God—that dream—it has not fled—
One of us old, and one of us dead!
Emily H. Hickey.
SONG.
HOW many lips have uttered one sweet word—
Ever the sweetest word in any tongue!
How many listening hearts have wildly stirred,
While burning blushes to the soft cheeks sprung,
And dear eyes, deepening with a light divine,
Were lifted up, as thine are now to mine!
How oft the night, with silence and perfume,
Has hushed the world that heart might speak to heart,
And make in each dim haunt of leafy gloom
A trysting-place where love might meet and part,
And kisses fall unseen on lips and brow,
As on thine, sweet! my kisses linger now!
Charles Lotin Hildreth.
THE TRYST.
SWEET as the change from pleasant thoughts to sleep
The silver gloaming melted into gloom,
Then came the evening silence rich and deep,
With mingled breaths of dew-released perfume;
The few first stars shone in the azure pale,
Soft as a young nun’s glances through her veil.
Was it for darkness that thou waited, sweet?
Ah, though thy face was dusk in night’s eclipse,
Thy heart betrayed thee by its quickened beat!
I needed not the light to find thy lips,
Nor in the balmy hush of even-time,
To hear one word more sweet than any rhyme.
Charles Lotin Hildreth.