Yea, the life that we lead now is better and sweeter,
I think, than shall be in the world by and bye;
For those days, be they longer or fewer or fleeter,
I will not exchange on the day that I die.
I shall die when the rose-tree about and above me
Her red kissing mouth seems hath kissed summer through:
I shall die on the day that she ceases to love me—
But that will not be till the day she dies too.
Then, fall on us, dead leaves of our dear roses,
And ruins of summer fall on us erelong,
And hide us away where our dead year reposes;
Let all that we leave in the world be—a song.
And, O song that I sing now while we are together,
Go, sing to some new year of women and men,
How I and she loved in the long loving weather,
And ask if they love on as we two loved then.
Arthur O’Shaughnessy.
AS ONE WOULD STAND WHO SAW A SUDDEN LIGHT.
AS one would stand who saw a sudden light
Flood down the world, and so encompass him,
And in that world illumined Seraphim
Brooded above and gladdened to his sight;
So stand I in the flame of one great thought,
That broadens to my soul from where she waits,
Who, yesterday, drew wide the inner gates
Of all my being to the hopes I sought.
Her words come to me like a summer-song,
Blown from the throat of some sweet nightingale;
I stand within her light the whole day long,
And think upon her till the white stars fail:
I lift my head towards all that makes life wise,
And see no farther than my lady’s eyes.
Gilbert Parker.
DEPARTURE.
IT was not like your great and gracious ways!
Do you, that have nought other to lament,
Never, my Love, repent
Of how, that July afternoon,
You went,
With sudden, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
Upon your journey of so many days,
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays,
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.
Well, it was well,
To hear you such things speak,
And I could tell
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
As a warm south-wind sombres a March grove.
And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash
To let the laughter flash,
Whilst I drew near,
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.
But all at once to leave me at the last,
More at the wonder than the loss aghast,
With huddled, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
And go your journey of all days
With not one kiss, or a good-bye,
And the only loveless look the look with which you passed:
’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.
Coventry Patmore.