Songs shall not cease of the hills and the heather;
Songs shall not fail of the land and the sea:
But, O heart, if you sing not while we are together,
What man shall remember my love or me?
Some million of summers hath been and not known her,
Hath known and forgotten loves less fair than she;
But one summer knew her, and grew glad to own her,
And made her its flower, and gave her to me.
And she and I loving, on earth seem to sever
Some part of the great blue from heaven each day:
I know that the heaven and the earth are for ever,
But that which we take shall with us pass away.
And that which she gives me shall be for no lover
In any new love-time, the world’s lasting while;
The world, when it looses, shall never recover
The gold of her hair nor the sun of her smile.
A tree grows in heaven, where no season blanches
Or stays the new fruit through the long golden clime;
My love reaches up, takes a fruit from its branches,
And gives it to me to be mine for all time.
What care I for other fruits, fed with new fire,
Plucked down by new lovers in fair future line?
The fruit that I have is the thing I desire,
To live of and die of,—the sweet she makes mine.
And she and I loving, are king of one summer
And queen of one summer to gather and glean:
The world is for us what no fair future comer
Shall find it or dream it could ever have been.
The earth, as we lie on its bosom, seems pressing
A heart up to bear us and mix with our heart;
The blue, as we wonder, drops down a great blessing
That soothes us and fills us and makes the tears start.
The summer is full of strange hundredth-year flowers,
That breathe all their lives the warm air of our love,
And never shall know a love other than ours
Till once more some phœnix-star flowers above.
The silver cloud passing is friend of our loving;
The sea, never knowing this year from last year,
Is thick with fair words, between roaring and soughing,
For her and me only to gather and hear.