SUMMER’S RETURN.
ONCE more I walk mid summer days, as one
Returning to the place where first he met
The face that he till death may not forget;
I know the scent of roses just begun,
And how at evening and at morn the sun
Falls on the places that remember yet
What feet last year within their bounds were set,
And what sweet things were said and dreamt and done.
The sultry silence of the summer night
Recalls to me the loved voice far away;
Oh, surely I shall see some early day,
In places that last year with love were bright,
The face of her I love, and hear the low,
Sweet troubled music of the voice I know.
Philip Bourke Marston.
MINE.
IN that tranced hush when sound sank awed to rest,
Ere from her spirit’s rose-red, rose-sweet gate
Came forth to me her royal word of fate,
Did she sigh “Yes,” and droop upon my breast,
While round our rapture, dumb, fixed, unexpressed
By the seized senses, there did fluctuate
The plaintive surges of our mortal state,
Tempering the poignant ecstasy too blest.
Do I wake into a dream, or have we twain,
Lured by soft wiles to some unconscious crime,
Dared joys forbid to man? Oh, Light supreme,
Upon our brows transfiguring glory rain,
Nor let the sword of thy just angel gleam
On two who entered heaven before their time!
Westland Marston.
AUBADE.
WHEN fair Hyperion dons his night attire,
Purple and silver, and his eyes with sleep
Go trembling, and the lids a-kissing keep,
And up he wings the plains of heaven the higher
The starry meadows all uncurl and creep
With twinkling shoots that tremble out and leap
From buds into a blossoming of fire.
When Spring, with primrose fillet round her brows,
Drifts on the dawn into the hyacinth west,
And flings fresh handfuls hoarded in her nest
Of tasty flowers, to Flora making vows,
The snow leaps down the mountain-side, and, press’d
With weight of leaves, the earth at happiest,
Rills into rivers thick from blossom-boughs.
When Liris comes sometime at break of day
To take the vervain garlands from the door,
I’ve hung there fresh with dew an hour before,
And chances with soft eyes to look my way,
My heart brims out with love, and crowding o’er,
The passion-songs and rhythms spring and pour,
As storms in June, or blossom-boughs in May.
Theo. Marzials.