The Rose-Jar

If I had never known

How far would I have wandered wistfully alone,

Hearing no echo of that wondrous song

Whose music lingers long.

Beside whose sweetness pale

Even the soft notes of the nightingale,

Whose theme is wrought of laughter and of tears

From all the deathless years.

Ah, better thus by far

To once have felt the barriers unbar,

And known the moment in a rapt surprise

The song of Paradise!

The winds may blow, the sleet may dash the pane

And all our lonely road be clothed in gray,

Yet what care we how dark may be the way,

Or whether e’er we see the sun again;

On shall we journey through the stinging rain,

Our glad hearts beating to a roundelay

Learned long ago in one great, joyous day,

When we first knew we had not lived in vain.

We two have lived, we drank the ruddy wine

And felt the wonder of its burning kiss—

Let come what may there is no earthly power

Can take away that rapture, yours and mine.

Others may weep, who would give all for this,

To find what we have found—the golden hour!

It did not look so far, and yet, and yet,

The moments were so easy to forget,

For now without your hand to guide, it seems

I seek in vain to find a way of dreams.

A moon-lit path between aspiring trees,

’Neath wind-blown leaves rustling in harmonies,

A little song that I may never sing—

But oh, the wondrous memory lingering.

And though I never may return until

I clasp your hand beyond these years, why still

There is one guide the path of life along—

A fleeting end of dream-remembered song.

Where the winds low list and the leafless trees

Stand gaunt and gray ’gainst the sullen sky,

The naked boughs whisper melodies

Of Summer spent and of Spring gone by—

Of days once glad that are gone forever,

Of lips once true that will answer never,

Of life and love that are but as these

Dead leaves of Autumn grown withered and dry.

But a spirit haunts in the moon’s pale glow

And all is changed as she sings a strain,

While the night winds hearken and lightly blow

Her loose-bound hair in a raven-rain—

And bear her song to the distant closes,

Where many a longing heart reposes,

Waking old love-dreams that overflow

In a rapturous joy and wistful pain.

Ah, that song ’tis sweet as the pipes of Pan,

Or faint lutes sounding in Arcady

Through the purple dawn,—yea, far sweeter than

The music that wafts from a Southern sea!

Beneath its spell the wastes bloom in flowers,

And back again come the vanished hours,

For she who sings to the soul of man

Is the Autumn spirit of memory.

Ah, many were they then of yesterday,

Who bore me gifts of attar and of myrrh,

And leaves of roses delicate that were

Sprung from a garden-close in far Cathay;

While I, unheeding, let them pass their way

Nor cared for all the gifts they might confer,

Watching in vain for one dear loiterer,

Who never dreamed adown my path to stray.

And now out in the lonely road I stand,

Where echoes drearily the ceaseless tread

Of stranger footsteps, slow and burdensome—

I am forgot and empty is each hand,

Save for the dust of roses witherèd,

Yet still I wait for you who never come.

If only in your life to live, might I

Perchance those broken chords with my own meet,

Though quite imperfect, yet but thus to try

Were oh, so wondrous sweet.

Not the broad high-roads which you would have trod,

A lonely wanderer these may not essay,

Still, spirit mine, the by-paths that I plod

Do lead the selfsame way.

And if a little part I should fulfil

Of those fair deeds which you hoped to pursue—

Oh, how content to walk the miles until

I reach my home and you.

Low blowing winds from out a midnight sky,

The falling embers and a kettle’s croon—

These three, but oh what sweeter lullaby

Ever awoke beneath the winter’s moon.

We know of none the sweeter, you and I,

And oft we’ve heard together that old tune—

Low blowing winds from out a midnight sky,

The falling embers and a kettle’s croon.

Spirit of old-time roses, when the glow

Of eventide steals softly through the trees

Like rosy petals falling, and the breeze

Grows hushed until it sings a love-song, low

And sweet and tender, then I seem to know

You too are somewhere near and watching these

Last wondrous sights of day—God’s mysteries

We used to watch together long ago.

And, like a benediction, happiness

Fills all my soul, as if a wandering breath

From that high heaven had wafted down to me—

As if I felt again your dear caress

And knew you to be waiting e’er in death,

Crowned with the roses of eternity.