The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Woman's Love Letters, by Sophie M. Almon-Hensley

I have been wandering where the daisies grow,
Great fields of tall, white daisies, and I saw
Them bend reluctantly, and seem to draw
Away in pride when the fresh breeze would blow
From timothy and yellow buttercup,
So by their fearless beauty lifted up.

Yet must they bend at the strong breeze's will,
Bright, flawless things, whether in wrath he sweep
Or, as oftimes, in mood caressing, creep
Over the meadows and adown the hill.
So Love in sport or truth, as Fates allow,
Blows over proud young hearts, and bids them bow.

So beautiful is it to live, so sweet
To hear the ripple of the bobolink,
To smell the clover blossoms white and pink,
To feel oneself far from the dusty street,
From dusty souls, from all the flare and fret
Of living, and the fever of regret.

I have grown younger; I can scarce believe
It is the same sad woman full of dreams
Of seven short weeks ago, for now it seems
I am a child again, and can deceive
My soul with daisies, plucking one by one
The petals dazzling in the noonday sun.

Almost with old-time eagerness I try
My fate, and say: "un peu," a soft "beaucoup,"
Then, lower, "passionément, pas du tout;"
Quick the white petals fall, and lovingly
I pluck the last, and drop with tender touch
The knowing daisy, for he loves me "much."

I can remember how, in childish days,
I deemed that he who held my heart in thrall
Must love me "passionately" or "not at all."
Poor little wilful ignorant heart that prays
It knows not what, and heedlessly demands
The best that life can give with out-stretched hands!

Now I am wiser, and have learned to prize
Peace above passion, and the summer life
Here with the flowers above the ceaseless strife
Of armed ambitions. They alone are wise
Who know the daisy-secrets, and can hold
Fast in their eager hands her heart of gold.

Sea-Song.

A dash of spray,
A weed-browned way,—
My ship's in the bay,
In the glad blue bay,—
The wind's from the west
And the waves have a crest,
But my bird's in the nest
And my ship's in the bay!

At dawn to stand
Soft hand to hand,
Bare feet on the sand,—
On the hard brown sand,—
To wait, dew-crowned,
For the tarrying sound
Of a keel that will ground
On the scraping sand.

A glad surprise
In the wind-swept skies
Of my wee one's eyes,—
Those wondering eyes.
He will come, my sweet,
And will haste to meet
Those hurrying feet
And those sea-blue eyes.

I know the day
Must weary away,
And my ship's in the bay,—
In the clear, blue bay,—
Ah! there's wind in the west,
For the waves have a crest,
But my bird's in the nest
And my ship's in the bay!

Gratitude.

There are some things, dear Friend, are easier far
To say in written words than when we sit
Eye answering eye, or hand to hand close knit.
Not that there is between us any bar
Of shyness or reserve; the day is past
For that, and utter trust has come at last.

Only, when shut alone and safe inside
These four white walls,—hearing no sound except
Our own heart-beatings, silences have crept
Stealthily round us,—as the incoming tide
Quiet and unperceived creeps ever on
Till mound and pebble, rock and reef are gone.

Or out on the green hillside, even there
There is a hush, and words and thoughts are still.
For the trees speak, and myriad voices fill
With wondrous echoes all the waiting air.
We listen, and in listening must forget
Our own hearts' murmur, and our spirits' fret;

Even our joys,—thou knowest;—when the air
Is full to overflowing with the sense
Of hope fulfilled and passion's vehemence.
There is no place for words; we do not dare
To break Love's stillness, even though the power
Were ours by speech to lengthen out the hour.

But here in quietness I can recall
All I would tell thee, how thou art to me
Impulse and inspiration, and with thee
I can but smile though all my idols fall.
I wait my meed as others who have known
Patience till to their utmost stature grown.

As when the heavens are draped in gloomy gray
And earth is tremulous with a vague unrest
A glory fills the tender, troubled West
That glads the closing of November's day,
So breaks in sun-smiles my beclouded sky
When day is over and I know thee nigh.

Thou art so much, all this and more, to me,
And what am I to thee? Can I repay
These many gifts? Is there no royal way
Of recompense, so I may proudly see
The man my heart delights to praise renowned
For wealth and honor, and with rapture crowned?

Ah! though there is no recompense in love
Yet have I paid thee, given these gifts to thee,
Joy, riches, worship. Thou hast joy in me,
Is it not so, Beloved? Who shall prove
No worship of thee by my soul confessed?
And riches? Ah! a wealth of love is best.

Song.

I have known a thousand pleasures,—
Love is best—
Ocean's songs and forest treasures,
Work and rest,
Jewelled joys of dear existence,
Triumph over Fate's resistance,
But to prove, through Time's wide distance,
Love is best.

Prayer.

I stood upon a hill, and watched the death
Of the day's turmoil. Still the glory spread
Cloud-top to cloud-top, and each rearing head
Trembled to crimson. So a mighty breath
From some wild Titan in a rising ire
Might kindle flame in voicing his desire.

Soft stirred the evening air; the pine-crowned hills
Glowed in an answering rapture where the flush
Grew to a blood-drop, and the vesper hush
Moved in my soul, while from my life all ills
Faded and passed away. God's voice was there
And in my heart the silence was a prayer.

There was a day when to my fearfulness
Was born a joy, when doubt was swept afar
A shadow and a memory, and a star
Gleamed in my sky more bright for the distress.
The stillness breathed thanksgiving, and the air
Wafted, methought, the incense of a prayer.

Heaven sets no bounds of bead-roll or appeal;
And when the fiery heart with mute embrace
Bends, tremblingly, but for a moment's space
It needs no words that cry, no limbs that kneel.
As meteors flash, so, in a moment's light,
Life, darting forth, touches the Infinite.

All my prayers wordless? Nay, I can recall
A night not so long past but that each thought
Lives at this hour, and throbs again unsought
When Silence broods, and Night's chill shadows fall;
Then Darkness' thousand pulses thrilled and stirred
With the dear grace of a remembered word;

And I was still, thy voice enshrouding me.
Like the strong sweep of ocean-breath the power
Of one resistless thought transformed my hour
Of love-dreams to a fear. All hopelessly
I knew love's impotence, and my despair
Stretched soul-hands forth, and quivered to a prayer.

My passionate heart cried out: "If his dear life
Through stress of keen temptation merits aught
Of penance or requital, be it wrought
Upon my life. If only through the strife
Is won the peace, through drudgery the gain,
Give him the issue, and to me the pain!"

Some day, in our soul's course o'er trackless lands,
Swayed oft by adverse winds, or swept along
In Fate's wild current with the fluttering throng
Towards Sin's engulfing maelstrom, spirit hands
Will brace our trembling wings, and through the night
Point and upbear in our last trembling flight.

Song.

Red gleams the mountain ridge,
Slow the stream creeps
Under the old bent bridge,
And labor sleeps.

There are no restless birds,
No leaves that stir,
Dusk her gray mantle girds,
Night's harbinger.

The storm-soul's change and start
Pause, lull, and cease;
In my unquiet heart
Is born a peace.

Loneliness.

Dear, I am lonely, for the bay is still
As any hill-girt lake; the long brown beach
Lies bare and wet. As far as eye can reach
There is no motion. Even on the hill
Where the breeze loves to wander I can see
No stir of leaves, nor any waving tree.

There is a great red cliff that fronts my view
A bare, unsightly thing; it angers me
With its unswerving-grim monotony.
The mackerel weir, with branching boughs askew
Stands like a fire-swept forest, while the sea
Laps it, with soothing sighs, continually.

There are no tempests in this sheltered bay,
The stillness frets me, and I long to be
Where winds sweep strong and blow tempestuously,
To stand upon some hill-top far away
And face a gathering gale, and let the stress
Of Nature's mood subdue my restlessness.

An impulse seizes me, a mad desire
To tear away that red-browed cliff, to sweep
Its crest of trees and huts into the deep;
To force a gap by axe, or storm, or fire,
And let rush in with motion glad and free
The rolling waves of the wild wondrous sea.

Sometimes I wonder if I am the child
Of calm, law-loving parents, or a stray
From some wild gypsy camp. I cannot stay
Quiet among my fellows; when this wild
Longing for freedom takes me I must fly
To my dear woods and know my liberty.

It is this cringing to a social law
That I despise, these changing, senseless forms
Of fashion! And until a thousand storms
Of God's impatience shall reveal the flaw
In man's pet system, he will weave the spell
About his heart and dream that all is well.

Ah! Life is hard, Dear Heart, for I am left
To battle with my old-time fears alone
I must live calmly on, and make no moan
Though of my hoped-for happiness bereft.
Thou wilt not come, and still the red cliff lies
Hiding my ocean from these longing eyes.

Sea-Song.

It sings to me, it sings to me,
The shore-blown voice of the blithesome sea!
Of its world of gladness all untold,
Of its heart of green, and its mines of gold,
And desires that leap and flee.

It moans to me, it moans to me!
The storm-stirred voice of the restive sea!
Of the vain dismay and the yearning pain
For hopes that will never be born again
From the womb of the wavering sea.

It calls to me, it calls to me,
The luring voice of the rebel sea!
And I long with a love that is born of tears
For the wild fresh life, and the glorying fears,
For the quest and the mystery.

It wails to me, it wails to me,
Of the deep dark graves in the yawning sea;
And I hear the voice of a boy that is gone.
But the lad sleeps sound till the judgment-dawn
In the heart of the wind-swept sea.

Incompleteness.

Since first I met thee, Dear, and long before
I knew myself beloved, save by the sense
All women have, a shadowy confidence
Half-fear, that feels its bliss nor asks for more,
I have learned new desires, known Love's distress
Sounded the deepest depths of loneliness.

I was a child at heart, and lived alone,
Dreaming my dreams, as children may, at whiles,
Between their hours of play, and Earth's broad smiles
Allured my heart, and ocean's marvellous tone
Woke no strange echoes, and the woods' complain
Made chants sonorous, stirred no thoughts of pain.

And if, sometimes, dear Nature spoke to me
In tones mysterious, I had learned so much
Dwelling beside her daily, that her touch
Made me discerning. Though I might not see
Her purpose nor her meaning, I had part
In the proud throbbing of that mighty heart.

But now the earth has put a tiring-cloth
About her face; even in the mountains' cheer
There is a lack, and in the sea a fear,
The glad, rash sea, whose every mood, if wroth
Or soothing mild, is dear to me as are
Joy's new-born kisses on the lips of Care.

Since I have known thee, Dear, all life has grown
An expectation. As the swelling grain
Trembles to harvesting, and earth in pain
Travails till Spring is born, so felt alone
Is the dumb reaching out of things unborn,
The night's gray promise of the amber morn.

I long to taste my pleasures through thy lips,
To sail with thee o'er foaming waves and feel
Our spirits rise together with the reel
Of waters and the wavering land's eclipse;
To see thy fair hair damp with salt sea-spray
And in thine eyes the wildness of the way.

I long to share my woods with thee, to fly
To some black-hearted forest where the trail
Of mortals lingers not,—to hear the gale.
Sweep round us with a shuddering ecstasy,
To feel, night's tumult passed, the cool soft hand
Of the untroubled dawn move o'er the land.

To swim with thee far out into the bay,
A trembling glitter on the waves, the shore
Glowing with noontide fervor, nevermore
To fear the treacherous depths, though long the way.
Sweet beyond words the sighs that breathe and blow,
The moist salt kisses, and the glad warm glow.

And when the unrest, the vague desires that rush
Over our lives and may not be denied,—
Gone in the tasting,—lure us where the tide
Of men sweeps on, let us forget the hush
Together, and in city madness drain
Our cup of pleasure to its dregs of pain.

Ever I need thee. Incomplete and poor
This life of mine. Yet never dream my soul
Craves the old peace. Till I may have the whole
My joy is my abiding, and what more
Of dreams and waking bliss the Fates allow
Comes as a gift of Love's great overflow.

Song.

Deep in the green bracken lying,
Close by the welcoming sea,
Dream I, and let all my dreaming
Drift as it will, Love, to thee.

Sated with splendid caresses
Showered by the sun in his pride,
Scorched by his passionate kisses
Languidly ebbs the tide.

Life's Joys.

I have been pondering what our teachers call
The mystery of Pain; and lo! my thought
After it's half-blind reaching out has caught
This truth and held it fast. We may not fall
Beyond our mounting; stung by life's annoy,
Deeper we feel the mystery of Joy.

Sometimes they steal across us like a breath
Of Eastern perfume in a darkened room,
These joys of ours; we grope on through the gloom
Seeking some common thing, and from its sheath
Unloose, unknowing, some bewildering scent
Of spice-thronged memories of the Orient.

Sometimes they dart across our turbid sky
Like a quick flash after a heated day.
A moment, where the sombrous shadows lay
We see a glory. Though it passed us by
No earthly power can filch that dazzling glow
From memory's eye, that instant's shine and show.

Life is so full of joys. The alluring sea,
This morning clear and placid, may, ere night,
Toss like a petulant child, and when the light
Of a new morning dawns sweep grand and free
A mighty power. If fierce, or mild, or bright,
With every tide flows in a fresh delight.

I can remember well when first I knew
The fragrance of white clover. There I lay
On the warm July grass and heard the play
Of sun-browned insects, and the breezes blew
To my drowsed sense the scent the blossoms had;
The subtle sweetness stayed, and I was glad.

Nor passed the gladness. Though the years have gone
(A many years, Beloved, since that day,)
Whenever by the roadside or away
In radiant summer fields, wandering alone
Or with glad children, to my restless sight
Shows that pale head, comes back the old delight.

Oh! the dark water, and the filling sail!
The scudding like a sea-mew, with the hand
Firm on the tiller! See, the red-shored land
Receding, as we brave the hastening gale!
White gleam the wave-tops, and the breakers' roar
Sounds thunderingly on the far distant shore.

This mad hair flying in the breeze blows wild
Across my face. See, there, the gathering squall,
That dark line to the eastward, watch it crawl
Stealthily towards us o'er the snow-wreaths piled
Close on each other! Ah! what joy to be
Drunk with salt air, in battle with the sea!

So many joys, and yet I have but told
Of simple things, the joys of air and sea!
Not all these things are worth one hour with thee,
One moment, when thy daring arms enfold
My body, and all other, meaner joys,
Fade from me like a child's forgotten toys.

One thought is ever with me, glorying all
Life's common aims. Surely will dawn a day
Bright with an unknown rapture, when thy way
Will be my journey-road, and I can call
These joys our joys, for thou wilt walk with me
Down budding pathways to the abounding sea.

Song.

Low laughed the Columbine,
Trembled her petals fine
As the breeze blew;
In her dove-heart there stirred
Murmurs the dull bee heard,
And Love, Life's wild white bird,
Straightway she knew.

Resting her lilac cheek
Gently, in aspect meek,
On the gray stone,
The morning-glory, free,
Welcomed the yellow bee,
Heard the near-rolling sea
Murmur and moan.

Calm lay the tawny sand
Stretching a long wet hand
To the far wave.
Swift to her warm waiting breast
Longing to be possessed
Leaps 'neath his billowy crest
Her Lover brave.

Barter

There is a long thin line of fading gold
In the far West, and the transfigured leaves
On some slight, topmost bough that sways and heaves
Hang limp and tremulous. Nor warm, nor cold
The pungent air, and, 'neath the yellow haze,
Show flushed and glad the wild, October ways.

There is a soft enchantment in the air,
A mystery the Summer knows not, nor
The sturdy, frost-crowned Winter. Nature wore
Her blandest smile to-day, as here and there
I wandered, elf-beset, through wood and field
And gleaned the glories of the autumn yield.

A bunch of purple aster, golden-rod
Darkened by the first frost, a drooping spray
Of scarlet barberry, and tall and gray
The silk-cored cotton with its bursting pod,
Some tarnished maple-boughs, and, like a flash
Of sudden flame, a branch of mountain ash.

She smiled, but it was not the welcoming smile
Of frank surrender. As a witching maid
In gorgeous garments cunningly arrayed
Might smile and draw them closer, hers the guile
To let men hope, pray, labor in love's stress
Ere they her hidden beauties may possess.

Deep in the heart of earth where the springs rise,
Down with the sweet linnæa and the moss,
In the brown thrush's throat, where the pines toss
In Winter's harrying storms her secret lies.
Ours the chill night-dews and the waiting pain
Ere we her fairy wealth may hope to gain.

'Tis so with knowledge. Eagerly we turn
Great Wisdom's page, and when our clear eyes grow
Dim in the dusk of years, and heads bend low
Weary at last, the truth we strove to learn
Is ours forever. But its joy of sight
Is dearly bought, methinks, with Youth's delight.

Fate, too, with chaffering voice and beckoning hand
Doles out our happiness; we snatch at wealth
And pay with anxious care and fading health.
We call for Love, and dream that we shall stand
On ground enchanted, but, though sweet the way,
The rocks are sharp, and grief comes with the Day.

Even in love, Dear Heart, there is exchange
Of gifts and griefs, and so I render thee
Vows for thy vows, and pay unfalteringly
What love demands, nor ever deem it strange.
And when the snow drifts fast, and north-winds sting
I make no murmur, but await the Spring.

Song.

Joy came in youth as a humming-bird,
(Sing hey! for the honey and bloom of life!)
And it made a home in my summer bower
With the honeysuckle and the sweet-pea flower.
(Sing hey! for the blossoms and sweets of life!)

Joy came as a lark when the years had gone,
(Ah! hush, hush still, for the dream is short!)
And I gazed far up to the melting blue
Where the rare song dropped like a golden dew.
(Ah! sweet is the song tho' the dream be short!)

Joy hovers now in a far-off mist,
(The night draws on and the air breathes snow!)
And I reach, sometimes, with a trembling hand
To the red-tipped cloud of the joy-bird's land.
(Alas! for the days of the storm and the snow!)

To-Morrow.

But one short night between my Love and me!
I watch the soft-shod dusk creep wistfully
Through the slow-moving curtains, pausing by
And shrouding with its spirit-fingers free
Each well-known chair. There is a growing grace
Of tender magic in this little place.

Comes through half-opened windows, soft and cool
As Spring's young breath, the vagrant evening air,
My day-worn soul is hushed. I fain would bear
No burdens on my brain to-night, no rule
Of anxious thought; the world has had my tears,
My thoughts, my hopes, my aims these many years;

This is Thy hour, and I shall sink to sleep
With a glad weariness, to know that when
The new day dawns I shall lay by my pen
Needed no more. If I, perchance, should weep
A few quick tears, so doing, who would guess
'Twas the last throb of my soul's loneliness?

Not even thou, Dear Heart, canst ever know
How I have yearned these many months, these years
For love, for thee. As the calm boatman steers
His slender shallop where he fain would go,
Tempests and rocks before, so through the dark
To this dim, far-off day has set my bark.

To-morrow! I can hear the quick-closed door,
The approaching steps, my pained heart's fluttering,
Thy voice, then Thee! And all the storm and sting
Of bygone griefs are passed forevermore,
Swept from my life as the resistless wind
Scatters the chaff, nor leaves a mote behind.

As long-imprisoned captives reach the light,
And gaze with greedy eyes on field and tree,
Drinking the beauties of the sky and sea
Half fearful of their bliss; so from the night
Of dreams and shades, half doubting, we awake
And grasp the joy we almost fear to take.

Thou hidest in thy warm ones my cold hand,
Reading my soul in these unwavering eyes.
Nay, thou hast known my hopes, my agonies
Through written words, and thou canst understand.
I have kept nothing back of all the streams
Of my heart-flowings—doubts, nor fears, nor dreams.

So long my life has followed no control
But mine own impulse; now, I pray thee, bend
My will to thine, and so, unhindered, tend
My soul's wild garden. I have laid the whole
Bare to thy sowing; and life's precious wine
Is of thy pouring, and thy way is mine.