You're just as pretty as the Day,
That young and pink above the hills
Trips daintily along her way,
With little breezy thrills.
I know that when she steps to earth
And sees the blueness of your eyes
She'll think that thence she took her birth,
And quite desert the skies!
TREPIDATION
This valley now in sun, and now in shade,
Is like the musings of your tender mind,
That pauses, bathed in joy, yet half afraid
To look before, and then to gaze behind.
Along the fragrant meadows slowly steal,
The pensive, drifting shadows, purple blue,
As o'er your heart, that shrinks the while to feel
The kiss of promise wonderful and new.
Look upward, Child, to where across the skies
Float happy clouds, aglow with morning light!
It is their shadow that before you lies
Upon the plain, and see, the clouds are white!
AT MEISSEN
June 29th
Beneath the lime trees in the garden
High above the town,
The scent of whose suspended bloom
Entranced the air with warm perfume
I stood, and watched the river flowing,
Flowing smooth and brown.
The heat of all the summer sunshine
Centred in the skies,
Beneath its spell the city's towers
Grew dreamy, and the climbing flowers
Upon the balconies hung limply
Down, with closing eyes.
Some drowsy pigeons cooed together
On the nearer eaves,
Gnats danced, and one big foolish bee
Grown honey-drunk, bumped into me,
And ere he buzzed a lazy protest
Fell amid the leaves.
A bell began to chime, I watched it
Swinging to and fro,
It made a solemn, pious sound,
While flippant swallows, darting round
To peer within the ancient belfrey
Soared now high, now low.
Time passed, and still I stayed to ponder
Through the afternoon,
Within my brain the golden haze
Wrought magic musings, and my gaze
Bent inward could behold no image
Save the form of June.
WINTER ON THE ZUYDER ZEE
The world has grown unreal to-day
Far out upon the Zuyder Zee!
We drift towards a mystic isle,
With scarce a breath of wind the while.
I hear the murmur of the tide,
I hear you breathing at my side,
Far out upon the Zuyder Zee.
The drearness of this inland sea!
Doomed thus to lie eternally
A fettered slave, grown old between
The dykes and marshes low and green,
Devoid of wind to stir the deep
Forgotten heart, so long asleep,
Oh! sorrow-ladened Zuyder Zee!
This awful hush engulfing things!
The noon-tide hangs with outspread wings
Above the ship, all motionless.
The penitential sails confess
Their sad inertness, damp and brown,
From silent masts they ripple down
Towards the lifeless Zuyder Zee.
I almost think that you and I
Are floating on a haze of sky,
This is an unknown sphere of dreams,
Or else some region where the beams
Of daylight that have died unblessed
By some kind thought stray seeking rest,
Along the wastes of Zuyder Zee.
How strange to know that youth is ours!
That do we choose a world of flowers
And sunlight waiting to our hand
Is calling for some gladder land,
So easy to attain, yet lo!
We drift amid the mist and woe
Of winter on the Zuyder Zee.
Is there a subtle charm, when sad
Despairing nature makes the glad
Rejoicing spirit pause to think,
Of those dim depths to which may sink
The soul immortal? Where the mind
May grow as sodden as a wind
That dies upon the Zuyder Zee?
When all our loving and our will
To love for ever can't fulfil
Love's promises for age and death?
That like a hushed, unwholesome breath,
From off the marshes in the night
Steals forth, and all our past delight
Is colder than the Zuyder Zee?
The very thought that death is near
Perchance makes life seem doubly dear,
And love more urgent, since they two
May some day fade away, and you
Become a spectral memory,
Devoid of joy! and what of me
Oh! wise, world-weary Zuyder Zee?
Your endless depth of stark despair
But renders sunlit things more fair,
But makes the craving heart more strong
To grasp its pleasures, short or long,
While yet it is To-day, nor wait
Upon the will of doubtful fate,
Lest all emotion rendered numb
With long suppression should become
As you are, soulless Zuyder Zee!
ARDOUR
The thought of you has filled the night with wonder,
The dawn with praise,
Till all my senses thrill, like roses under
The morning's rays.
This love of ours has clad with new-found splendour
The hills and streams,
No forest glade but sighs of vast surrender,
In noontide dreams,
No star in heaven but grants a starry lover
Some tender boon,
No drifting cloud but longs to clasp and cover
His lady Moon.
No song of bird that is not song of mating,
In sylvan shade,
No sigh of wind that is not sigh of waiting
For bliss delayed.
The world itself a garden, where we wander
'Mid passion flowers,
Or pause to kiss a while, and fondly ponder
This joy of ours.
A COMPLAINT
Oh! why let all these wingèd days slip past us!
Will you not give me leave with those dear eyes,
To taste the sweets of our new paradise,
Beyond the outer dark where fate has cast us?
Must we for ever see the golden portal
Yet ne'er in glad abandon enter in?
Dear heart, if loving be so great a sin
Why have the gods decreed that man be mortal!
And why were you created in their likeness,
And why was I ordained to be your slave,
If in the twilight I must dig a grave,
Wherein to hide my heart from morning's brightness?
I tell you no! I will not leave untasted
One drop of sweetness life may hold for me:
Who scorns the present for eternity
I count that soul a sorry fool and wasted.
THE LAYING OF GHOSTS
Oh! weary ghosts, be still!
Sad spectres of long dead delights,
Wan spirits of the days and nights
Wherein of joy we drank our fill,
Lie deep beneath the sod of years.
To-day, to-day is mine!
Ye shall not blight its fragrant flowers,
Nor mar the passing of its hours,
That love has rendered all divine,
By woeful sighs and falling tears.
This is the sphere of life,
Wherein the long forgotten dead
Unwelcome should forbear to tread,
Within my veins hot blood runs rife,
But ye are colder than the grave!
What would ye have of me?
What price that penance did not pay,
What sacrifice of human clay?
Must my delight again set free
Be tethered to a witless slave?
While still upon this earth
Ye lived, and 'neath the joyous sun
Were warm and fair to look upon,
I blest the hour that gave ye birth,
And all my life laid at your feet.
The homage of my youth
I daily offered at your shrine,
Nor counted dear those gifts of mine
Which sapped the very strength of truth,
And left her poor and incomplete.
Nor did condemn the lust,
The soul destroying tyranny,
With which ye wrought my misery,
For in my heart was endless trust,
My spirit, dauntless, knew no fear.
Ye cry that ye were slain
Alas! it was not I who slew,
For all my hopes were buried too
Within that hour of death and pain,
And there remained not e'en a tear.
Nay, it was fate whose hand
Upraised to strike the awful blow
Decreed that ye must die, and go
Lamented to that shadow land
Of lost illusions perished soon!
Wherein the once-time-young
Thro' countless ages seek, nor find,
Their vanished youth; with wandering mind
They sing the songs that once they sung,
But never may complete the tune.
Hence—hence! it is not yet
The hour wherein I too must pass,
The sand runs still within the glass,
And I would live and fain forget
Those bygone things that once ye were.
My lips have touched the rose,
And in its perfumed breast the dew
Has quenched my thirst; and lo! anew
The petals of my heart unclose,
My pulses throb, my senses stir.
Ye shall not steal this day,
For love has risen to my aid,
See, I am brave and undismayed!
Hence—hence! all things must pass away,
Back to your graves, obscure and deep!
I read aloud love's prayer,
Lift not again your haunting eyes
T'wards my new-found Paradise,
Lie still beside my lost despair,
And I command you—Sleep, Sleep, Sleep!
TO A BABY
Baby, with those solemn eyes
And that yellow hair
You are very, very wise,
Baby dear, I'll swear!
Give me, sweet, your chubby hand,
Whisper in my ear,
Since you seem to understand
Much that is not clear.
If you'll sit upon my knee,
Baby, for awhile,
All that's sad shall go from me,
Vanquish'd by a smile.
Very humbly will I learn
That which you can teach,
Life's great problems, each in turn
Solved in lisping speech.
You're so near to God, I feel
Poor and incomplete,
Just as though I ought to kneel,
Dear, and kiss your feet.