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Title: A spray of lilac, and other poems and songs

Author: M. Hedderwick-Browne

Release date: July 21, 2022 [eBook #68579]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Isbister and Company Limited, 1892

Credits: Charlene Taylor, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPRAY OF LILAC, AND OTHER POEMS AND SONGS ***

A Spray of Lilac


Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson and Co.
London and Edinburgh

A Spray
of Lilac

And Other Poems and Songs


BY
MARIE HEDDERWICK BROWNE


LONDON
ISBISTER AND COMPANY Limited
15 & 16 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN
1892

Oh, lilac bloom! strange that so slight a thing
 As thou is strong to roll away the stone
 From memory’s grave, and set the dead past free
 To claim again brief kinship with its own.

PREFATORY NOTE

Most of the Poems contained in this volume have appeared during the past ten years, in “Atalanta,” “Chambers’s Journal,” “London Society,” “Little Folks,” “The Girl’s Own Paper,” and other serials.

If an apology for venturing to offer them to the public in collected form be deemed necessary, I can only urge the plea of the poor but hospitable Dervish, “He is a generous host who freely giveth his best, be his best but clear water and a crust.”

M. H. B.

London, December 1892

CONTENTS

 PAGE
A SPRAY OF LILAC1
OLD GARDEN3
A MOTHER’S GRIEF5
A SUMMER MEMORY8
UNSATISFIED11
MY SONG12
IN AN OLD CHURCHYARD13
SECRETS15
REVEALED—NOT SPOKEN16
BURIED TREASURES19
AFFINITY20
“MY HOUSE IS LEFT UNTO ME DESOLATE”21
AN OLD MAN’S DREAM22
A SUMMER WOOING24
WEE ELSIE26
BIDE WI’ MITHER28
CHILD ANGELS30
MY LOVE OF LONG AGO32
IN SUMMER TIME34
TWIN-SISTERS36
AT LAST38
TRYSTING-TIME40
BESIDE THE DEAD41
HER FIRST SEASON43
ANTICIPATED46
WHEN THOU ART NEAR47
A PORTRAIT48
DOROTHY49
DAFFODILS51
THE BLACKBIRD52
“WHOM THE GODS LOVE DIE YOUNG”53
GRANNIE’S BAIRN54
LOVE’S POWER56
A JUNE MEMORY57
A MESSAGE59
HER WINDOW61
SHATTERED HOPES62
HAND IN HAND64
“AND FOR THE WEARY, REST”65
IN AN OLD ORCHARD67
BY THE SEA68
REGRET69
WAE’S ME70
THE REASON WHY71
DOWN BY THE SEA73
A VENTURE74
WATER LILIES75
THE SENTINEL76
A LOVE SONG77
AUTUMN78
A QUAKER MAID79
THE TIME, THE PLACE, THE BELOVED81
DAY DREAMS82
SONG OF THE SEASONS83
ONE SUMMER DAY84
THE INSCRUTABLE85
DELILAH86
A BABY’S GRAVE87
A CHILD’S FAVOURITE88
RICH OR POOR?89
DOLLY’S GARDEN90
IN A DREAM-SHIP91
THE FLOWER-QUEEN’S FALL93
A VETERAN95
TO A BUTTERFLY96
WHEN AND WHERE96
WHEN LOVE IS YOUNG100
A CHARACTER SKETCH101
FRIENDS102
BED-TIME104

A SPRAY OF LILAC

Pale cluster, thy faint perfume comes to me
 Laden with memories of long ago,
 And all the present dims as o’er my soul
 The waves of tender recollection flow.
With Spring’s young blood again my veins are thrilled,
 My hands are stretched to meet the coming years,
 The world holds all the glory that it held
 Ere yet mine eyes had looked on it thro’ tears.
With deftest fingers fancy weaves once more
 Her fairy fabrics; vast horizons glow
 With fires of promise, for behind their veils
 They hid rich treasures in that long-ago.
The subtle sweetness of the vanished days,
 The rapture of the old ecstatic bliss,
 All, all are mine, as once again I cling
 To ripe warm lips in love’s first passion-kiss.
The long delicious Summer slowly weaves
 For Autumn’s brows a crown of living gold;
 Sad Winter follows with his winding-sheet,
 For all the glory has grown grey and old.
Oh, lilac bloom, strange that so slight a thing
 As thou, is strong to roll away the stone
 From memory’s grave, and set the dead past free
 To claim yet once brief kinship with its own.

IN AN OLD GARDEN

Yellow roses, purple pansies,
 Tufts of heavy-headed stocks;
 Either side the quaint old gateway
 Blazing, torch-like hollyhocks.
Sweet peas tossing airy banners,
 Saintly lilies bending low,
 Daisies, powdering all the green sward
 With a shower of summer snow.
Boxwood borders—yews fantastic—
 Wallflowers that with every sigh
 Spill such scent that e’en the brown bees,
 Reel with rapture wandering by.
And the pear trees, long arms stretching
 O’er the sunny gable wall,
 Scarce can hold their ruddy nurslings
 Ripening where the warm beams fall.
Oh, the ecstasy of living!
 How it thrills my life to-day!
 I can almost hear the flower-bells
 Tinkle where my footsteps stray!
In a garden God first placed man,
 There first woke Love’s magic thrill;
 And methinks a breath of Eden
 Clings to earth’s old gardens still.

A MOTHER’S GRIEF

To a great wide city all alone,
 Long, long ago went our baby queen—
 No name but hers on the white headstone,
 That gleams to the moon from its mound of green!
 None of her own did welcome her there—
 Not a grain of kindred dust doth wave
 In the flowers that out of the tears of despair
 Have arched a rainbow over her grave.
Out from the shelter of loving arms,
 Out from the warmth of a mother’s breast,
 Heedless of darkness and night’s alarms,
 On to the silent city she pressed
 To take her place ’mong the mighty throng
 That people its myriad streets. Ah, me!
 I felt my God had done me a wrong,
 When He loosened love’s cords and set her free!
And my passionate moan that broke in tears,
 Like a burdened wave on a desert shore,
 Seemed all too feeble to reach His ears
 And the pain grew old that my bosom bore;
 But the faith that I once had thought mine own
 Rose up to mock where it could not save,
 And my heart grew hard as the carven stone
 That was crushing my darling in her grave.
Whenever a child’s sweet flower-like face
 Met mine, a sickness would o’er me creep,
 And I’d turn wild eyes to the lonely place
 Where she was lying alone—asleep.
 At strife was I with the world, and God
 Had drawn around Him an angry cloud;
 Earth held no green but the churchyard sod,
 And the daisies wore the gleam of a shroud.
But a time there came when about my breast
 With a wand’ring touch small fingers stole,
 And feeble lips to its fountains pressed,
 And stirred with a vague sweet joy my soul;
 And the floodgates opened, and blessèd tears
 Of repentance fell from my eyes like rain,
 And after the barren and prayerless years
 I knelt to the Giver of All again!

A SUMMER MEMORY

I remember an evening,
 An evening in one far June,
 The sun seemed loth to leave the sky
 To a young impatient moon.
The yellow sands lay waiting
 For the sea’s long cool embrace;
 We watched the ripples breaking,
 Like smiles upon its face.
The green trees nestled closer
 To the broad breast of the hill;
 The twilight’s glamour gathered,
 And the day was with us still.
And a sadness born of beauty,
 And a joy to pain akin,
 Touched all that lay without us,
 And hushed my soul within.
A silence stepped between us,
 We seemed to stand apart;
 Yet I thought your eyes grew tender,
 And I know what filled my heart.
But the words were never spoken;
 And the distance wider grew,
 Till the world of waves was lying
 Between me, love, and you,
No bridge might ever cross it.
 I watched you turn away,
 And I went back to duty—
 ’Tis all a woman may.
But I never shall be nearer
 The thrilling heights of bliss—
 Unless the next world gives us
 The love we lose in this—
Than when in that far June-time,
 We seemed to stand apart,
 And I thought your eyes grew tender,
 And I knew what filled my heart.

UNSATISFIED

Oh, “dear dead days” that dearer grow,
 I look behind, and thro’ my tears,
 Across a wide, wide gulf of years,
 I see you now and now I know.
When I was yours, you mine, alas!
 I did not know your real worth,
 And, longing for the future’s birth,
 Found time so slow, so slow to pass.
The joys I hoped for never came,
 While those I held slipped from my clasp,
 As I stretched yearning hands to grasp
 Shadows—’tis evermore the same!
We strain dim eyes up to the stars,
 Nor heed the blossoms at our feet;
 Like puny birds we beat and beat
 Our lives out ’gainst Fate’s prison bars.

MY SONG

“When love is mine,” said I, “I’ll make a song
 In praise of love that maketh life so sweet;
 One worthy such a grand and noble theme—
 Worthy to lay at my belovèd’s feet.
“Pure, perfect pearls of poesy I’ll string
 On Music’s silken thread, so rhythmic-sweet
 That those who hear shall feel as though each word
 Were but an echo of my heart’s warm beat.”
Now love is mine; but where my boasted song?
 My heart is full—too full, ah me! for words;
 And yet methinks my new-found joy has lent
 Fresh rapture to the voices of the birds.
And I am dumb; the world will never hear
 The music filling all this life of mine.
 Oh! love is too sublime a theme for me;
 I can but kneel in silence at love’s shrine.

IN AN OLD CHURCHYARD

In one of England’s sweetest spots,
 A little old grey church I found;
 Around it lies—dear restful ground!
 God’s garden with its sacred plots.
With myriad arms the ivy holds
 Its time-worn walls in close embrace:
 So Memory sometimes keeps a face
 Half-veiled in tender misty folds.
With sleepy twitter and with song
 The tower, bird-haunted, is alive;
 In leafy seas they dip and dive,
 Those tiny warblers all day long.
Like sentinels grown hoar with age,
 The crumbling headstones guard the graves
 Which softly swell—green voiceless waves
 That will not break though tempests rage.
“Concerning them that are asleep”
 In this sweet hamlet of the dead,
 In broken sentences I read
 The record those old tablets keep;
Each told its tale, for hath not Grief
 A voice whose echoes never die?
 Adown the ages, Rachel’s cry
 Still rings o’er some God-garnered sheaf.
Mine eyes, ne’er prodigal of tears,
 Did fill with such as seemed to rise
 And drown the glory of the skies,
 O’er those who’d slept the sleep of years.

SECRETS

July roses wet with rain
 Tap against the window-pane;
 There is something they would seek,
 Had they voices and could speak.
 Silence seals their crimson lips,
 And the dull rain drops and drips.
Th’ other side the streaming glass
 Stands a little sad-eyed lass;
 There is something she would seek,
 But a maiden may not speak—
 Silence seals her longing lips,
 And the dull rain drops and drips.
And salt tears in showers stain
 Her side of the window-pane;
 And the crimson roses grow
 Pale as dreams dreamt long ago;
 (Hearts may break behind sealed lips),
 And the dull rain drops and drips.

REVEALED—NOT SPOKEN

The little maiden that I love,
 I met in yonder lane;
 A flood of sunshine seemed to fall
 Around her as she came.
Methought the very hedgerows took
 A tenderer, livelier green,
 And blossoms burst from every bud
 As she passed on between!
And gladder, madder, merrier notes
 A skylark round him threw,
 As high above her golden head,
 He poised amid the blue.
I meant to tell her all my heart,
 And yet—I know not why,
 Upon the threshold of my lips
 The story seemed to die.
It might have been the witchery,
 The magic of her smile,
 That in a spell held all my soul,
 And kept me dumb the while!
It might have been that all too pure
 For earth-born love seemed she;
 From her white height of maidenhood
 How could she stoop to me?
But eyes can prove more eloquent,
 And though the tongue may fail,
 In potent language they reveal
 The old, old tender tale.
For, placing her slim hand in mine,
 Methought I heard my name
 So softly, murmurously breathed,
 I scarce knew whence it came!
No need for words between us now;
 A subtle sweetness stole
 Through all our being, and we felt
 That soul had answered soul.
And with the sunshine in our hearts,
 The bird’s song in our ears,
 We left the lane, my love and I,
 To meet the coming years.

BURIED TREASURES

’Tis true my later years are blest
 With all that riches can bestow,
 But there is wealth, wealth cannot buy,
 Hid in the mines of “Long Ago.”
There jealous guard does Memory keep;
 Yet sometimes, when I dream alone,
 She comes and takes my hand in hers,
 And shows me what was once my own.
I revel ’mong such precious things;
 I count my treasures o’er and o’er;
 I learn the worth of some, whose worth,
 Ah me! I never knew before.
And then all slowly fades away,
 And I return to things you know,
 With empty hands and tear-filled eyes,
 Back from the mines of “Long Ago.”

AFFINITY

But little converse have we held,
 Our hands have scarcely ever met,
 With just a formal word or two
 You come and go; and yet—and yet—
 I have a dream we two were one
 Ere garb of flesh these spirits wore;
 The soul that speaks within your eyes
 Tells mine they’ve met and loved before.
And so I am content to wait,
 Knowing the day will surely dawn
 When, as the first man woke, you’ll wake
 From your soul-sleep, and looking on
 My face will know that I am she,
 Your Eve, your other self, your fate.
 Till then, till then, come weal or woe,
 I am content, content to wait.

“MY HOUSE IS LEFT UNTO ME DESOLATE”

A little while, you say, a little while,
 And I shall be where my belovèd are;
 And with your eyes aglow with faith, you say,
 “Thy dear ones have not journeyed very far.”
“Not very far.” I say it o’er and o’er,
 Till on mine ear mine own voice strangely falls,
 Like some mechanic utterance that repeats
 A meaningless refrain to empty walls.
“Not very far;” but measured by my grief,
 A distance measureless as my despair.
 When from the dreams that give them back to me,
 I wake to find that they have journeyed there!
“Not very far.” The soul surmises, hopes,
 Has hoped, surmising, since the first man slept;
 But, oh, the heart, it knoweth its own loss,
 And death is death, as ’twas when Rachel wept.

AN OLD MAN’S DREAM

With idle hands and misty eyes,
 I sit alone to-night and dream;
 Upon the hearth, like elfin sprites,
 The red flames dance, and twist, and gleam.
A dimness gathers in my room,
 The pictured faces on the wall
 Pale, and o’er each familiar thing
 A strangeness slowly seems to fall.
With noiseless step there comes to me,
 One whom I loved in days gone by.
 The same is she, unchanged by time—
 Unchanged—but oh, how changed am I!
Her hair, which long, long years ago
 Was like spun threads of living gold,
 Still clusters round a brow that wears
 Immortal youth—and I am old.
No look of recognition lights
 Her eyes, that meet mine o’er and o’er;
 And yet she loved me once—and love,
 I know, is love for evermore.
She looks around in anxious quest;
 I think I know for whom she seeks.
 She only sees a strange old man,
 With snow-white hair and wrinkled cheeks.
And then like wings of birds that preen
 For flight, a soft stir moves the air,
 It is the whisper of her gown—
 She goes to look for me elsewhere.
A sudden glory fills my eyes,
 It is the firelight’s ruddy gleam;
 Thank God she did not pass me by
 I only saw her in a dream!

A SUMMER WOOING

A SONG