O violet! thy odour through my brain
Hath searched, and stung to grief
This sunny day, as if a curse did stain
Thy velvet leaf.
W. W. Story.
TO MY LADY.
FROM out the past she comes to me,
My Lady whom I loved long syne:
Her face is very fair to see,
Her gray eyes still with love-light shine,
I needs must think she still is mine.
Once—in those old years long ago—
I waited at the hour of dawn.
And, with the first faint Eastern glow—
Before the sun his sword had drawn
And flushed its light the world upon,
My Lady’s true love did I know!
But now at eve she comes—I stand
Alone. Among the autumn trees
Her white robe glimmers, and the breeze
Wafts me a ghostly fragrance rare.
Ah me! No rose doth she now bear—
But crimson poppies in her hand.
Edward Fairbrother Strange.
AT PARTING.
FOR a day and night, Love sang to us, played with us,
Folded us round from the dark and the light;
And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us,
Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us,
Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight
For a day and a night.
From his foes that kept watch with his wings had he hidden us,
Covered us close from the eyes that would smite,
From the feet that had tracked and the tongues that had chidden us,
Sheltering in shade of the myrtles forbidden us,
Spirit and flesh growing one with delight
For a day and a night.
But his wings will not rest, and his feet will not stay for us:
Morning is here in the joy of its might;
With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us:
Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us;
Love can but last in us here at his height
For a day and a night.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.