Maiden May sat in her bower,In her blush rose bower in flower,Sweet of scent;Sat and dreamed away an hour,Half content, half uncontent."Why should rose blossoms be born,Tender blossoms, on a thornThough so sweet?Never a thorn besets the cornScentless in its strength complete."Why are roses all so frail,At the mercy of the gale,Of a breath?Yet so sweet and perfect pale,Still so sweet in life and death."Maiden May sat in her bower,In her blush rose bower in flower,Where a linnetMade one bristling branch the towerFor her nest and young ones in it."Gay and clear the linnet trills;Yet the skylark only, thrillsHeaven and earthWhen he breasts the height, and fillsHeight and depth with song and mirth."Nightingales which yield to nightSolitary strange delight,Reign alone:But the lark for all his heightFills no solitary throne;"While he sings, a hundred sing;Wing their flight below his wingYet in flight;Each a lovely joyful thingTo the measure of its delight."Why then should a lark be reckonedOne alone, without a secondNear his throne?He in skyward flight unslackened,In his music, not alone."Maiden May sat in her bower;Her own face was like a flowerOf the prime,Half in sunshine, half in shower,In the year's most tender time.Her own thoughts in silent songMusically flowed along,Wise, unwise,Wistful, wondering, weak or strong:As brook shallows sink or rise.Other thoughts another day,Maiden May, will surge and swayRound your heart;Wake, and plead, and turn at bay,Wisdom part, and folly part.Time not far remote will borrowOther joys, another sorrow,All for you;Not to-day, and yet to-morrowReasoning false and reasoning true.Wherefore greatest? Wherefore least?Hearts that starve and hearts that feast?You and I?Stammering Oracles have ceased,And the whole earth stands at "why?"Underneath all things that beLies an unsolved mystery;Over allSpreads a veil impenetrably,Spreads a dense unlifted pall.Mystery of mysteries:Thiscreation hears and seesHigh and low--Vanity of vanities:Thiswe test andthiswe know.Maiden May, the days of floweringNurse you now in sweet embowering,Sunny days;Bright with rainbows all the showering,Bright with blossoms all the ways.Close the inlet of your bower,Close it close with thorn and flower,Maiden May;Lengthen out the shortening hour,--Morrows are not as to-day.Stay to-day which wanes too soon,Stay the sun and stay the moon,Stay your youth;Bask you in the actual noon,Rest you in the present truth.Let to-day suffice to-day:For itself to-morrow mayFetch its loss;Aim and stumble, say its say,Watch and pray and bear its cross.
Long have I longed, till I am tiredOf longing and desire;Farewell my points in vain desired,My dying fire;Farewell all things that die and fail and tire.Springtide and youth and useless pleasureAnd all my useless scheming,My hopes of unattainable treasure,Dreams not worth dreaming,Glow-worms that gleam but yield no warmth in gleaming,Farewell all shows that fade in showing:My wish and joy stand overUntil to-morrow; Heaven is glowingThrough cloudy cover,Beyond all clouds loves me my Heavenly Lover.
The Spring spreads one green lap of flowersWhich Autumn buries at the fall,No chilling showers of Autumn hoursCan stay them or recall;Winds sing a dirge, while earth lays out of sightHer garment of delight.The cloven East brings forth the sun,The cloven West doth bury himWhat time his gorgeous race is runAnd all the world grows dim;A funeral moon is lit in heaven's hollow,And pale the star-lights follow.
Because you never yet have loved me, dear,Think you you never can nor ever will?Surely while life remains hope lingers still,Hope the last blossom of life's dying year.Because the season and mine age grow sere,Shall never Spring bring forth her daffodil,Shall never sweeter Summer feast her fillOf roses with the nightingales they hear?If you had loved me, I not loving you,If you had urged me with the tender pleaOf what our unknown years to come might do(Eternal years, if Time should count too few),I would have owned the point you pressed on me,Was possible, or probable, or true.
Oh fair Milly Brandon, a young maid, a fair maid!All her curls are yellow and her eyes are blue,And her cheeks were rosy red till a secret care madeHollow whiteness of their brightness as a care will do.Still she tends her flowers, but not as in the old days,Still she sings her songs, but not the songs of old:If now it be high Summer her days seem brief and cold days,If now it be high Summer her nights are long and cold.If you have a secret keep it, pure maid Milly;Life is filled with troubles and the world with scorn;And pity without love is at best times hard and chilly,Chilling sore and stinging sore a heart forlorn.Walter Brandon, do you guess Milly Brandon's secret?Many things you know, but not everything,With your locks like raven's plumage, and eyes like an egret,And a laugh that is music, and such a voice to sing.Nelly Knollys, she is fair, but she is not fairerThan fairest Milly Brandon was before she turned so pale:Oh, but Nelly's dearer if she be not rarer,She need not keep a secret or blush behind a veil.Beyond the first green hills, beyond the nearest valleys,Nelly dwells at home beneath her mother's eyes:Her home is neat and homely, not a cot and not a palace,Just the home where love sets up his happiest memories.Milly has no mother; and sad beyond anotherIs she whose blessed mother is vanished out of call:Truly comfort beyond comfort is stored up in a motherWho bears with all, and hopes through all, and loves us all.Where peacocks nod and flaunt up and down the terrace,Furling and unfurling their scores of sightless eyes,To and fro among the leaves and buds and flowers and berriesMaiden Milly strolls and pauses, smiles and sighs.On the hedged-in terrace of her father's palaceShe may stroll and muse alone, may smile or sigh alone,Letting thoughts and eyes go wandering over hills and valleysTo-day her father's, and one day to be all her own.If her thoughts go coursing down lowlands and up highlands,It is because the startled game are leaping from their lair;If her thoughts dart homeward to the reedy river islands,It is because the waterfowl rise startled here or there.At length a footfall on the steps: she turns, composed and steady,All the long-descended greatness of her father's houseLifting up her head; and there stands Walter keen and readyFor hunting or for hawking, a flush upon his brows."Good-morrow, fair cousin." "Good-morrow, fairest cousin:The sun has started on his course, and I must start to-day.If you have done me one good turn you've done me many a dozen,And I shall often think of you, think of you away.""Over hill and hollow what quarry will you follow,Or what fish will you angle for beside the river's edge?There's cloud upon the hill-top and there 's mist deep down the hollow,And fog among the rushes and the rustling sedge.""I shall speed well enough be it hunting or hawking,Or casting a bait towards the shyest daintiest fin.But I kiss your hands, my cousin; I must not loiter talking,For nothing comes of nothing, and I'm fain to seek and win.""Here's a thorny rose: will you wear it an hour,Till the petals drop apart still fresh and pink and sweet?Till the petals drop from the drooping perished flower,And only the graceless thorns are left of it.""Nay, I have another rose sprung in another garden,Another rose which sweetens all the world for me.Be you a tenderer mistress and be you a warier wardenOf your rose, as sweet as mine, and full as fair to see.""Nay, a bud once plucked there is no reviving,Nor is it worth your wearing now, nor worth indeed my own;The dead to the dead, and the living to the living.It's time I go within, for it's time now you were gone.""Good-bye, Milly Brandon, I shall not forget you,Though it be good-bye between us for ever from to-day;I could almost wish to-day that I had never met you,And I'm true to you in this one word that I say.""Good-bye, Walter. I can guess which thornless rose you covet;Long may it bloom and prolong its sunny morn:Yet as for my one thorny rose, I do not cease to love it,And if it is no more a flower I love it as a thorn."
Never on this side of the grave again,On this side of the river,On this side of the garner of the grain,Never,--Ever while time flows on and on and on,That narrow noiseless river,Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan,Ever,--Never despairing, often fainting, ruing,But looking back, ah never!Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuingEver.
Many have sung of love a root of bane:While to my mind a root of balm it is,For love at length breeds love; sufficient blissFor life and death and rising up again.Surely when light of Heaven makes all things plain,Love will grow plain with all its mysteries;Nor shall we need to fetch from over seasWisdom or wealth or pleasure safe from pain.Love in our borders, love within our heart,Love all in all, we then shall bide at rest,Ended for ever life's unending quest,Ended for ever effort, change and fear:Love all in all;--no more that better partPurchased, but at the cost of all things here.
There is silence that saith, "Ah me!"There is silence that nothing saith;One the silence of life forlorn,One the silence of death;One is, and the other shall be.One we know and have known for long,One we know not, but we shall know,All we who have ever been born;Even so, be it so,--There is silence, despite a song.Sowing day is a silent day,Resting night is a silent night;But whoso reaps the ripened cornShall shout in his delight,While silences vanish away.
I sat beneath a willow tree,Where water falls and calls;While fancies upon fancies solaced me,Some true, and some were false.Who set their heart upon a hopeThat never comes to pass,Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,The sun's wan looking-glass.Who set their will upon a whimClung to through good and ill,Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,Or hit or miss their will.All things are vain that wax and wane,For which we waste our breath;Love only doth not wane and is not vain,Love only outlives death.A singing lark rose toward the sky,Circling he sang amain;He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,And then he sank again.A second like a sunlit sparkFlashed singing up his track;But never overtook that foremost lark,And songless fluttered back.A hovering melody of birdsHaunted the air above;They clearly sang contentment without words,And youth and joy and love.O silvery weeping willow treeWith all leaves shivering,Have you no purpose but to shadow meBeside this rippled spring?On this first fleeting day of Spring,For Winter is gone by,And every bird on every quivering wingFloats in a sunny sky;On this first Summer-like soft day,While sunshine steeps the air,And every cloud has gat itself away,And birds sing everywhere.Have you no purpose in the worldBut thus to shadow meWith all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,O weeping willow tree?With all your tremulous leaves outspreadBetwixt me and the sun,While here I loiter on a mossy bedWith half my work undone;My work undone, that should be doneAt once with all my might;For after the long day and lingering sunComes the unworking night.This day is lapsing on its way,Is lapsing out of sight;And after all the chances of the dayComes the resourceless night.The weeping-willow shook its headAnd stretched its shadow long;The west grew crimson, the sun smouldered red,The birds forbore a song.Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,The ripple made a moan,The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;And then I felt alone.I rose to go, and felt the chill,And shivered as I went;Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,What more that willow meant;That silvery weeping-willow treeWith all leaves shivering,Which spent one long day overshadowing meBeside a spring in Spring.
The splendor of the kindling day,The splendor of the setting sun,These move my soul to wend its way,And have doneWith all we grasp and toil amongst and say.The paling roses of a cloud,The fading bow that arches space,These woo my fancy toward my shroud;Toward the placeOf faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed.The nation of the awful stars,The wandering star whose blaze is brief,These make me beat against the barsOf my grief;My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.O fretted heart tossed to and fro,So fain to flee, so fain to rest!All glories that are high or low,East or west,Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.
The soonest mended, nothing said;And help may rise from east or west;But my two hands are lumps of lead,My heart sits leaden in my breast.O north wind swoop not from the north,O south wind linger in the south,Oh come not raving raging forth,To bring my heart into my mouth;For I've a husband out at sea,Afloat on feeble planks of wood;He does not know what fear may be;I would have told him if I could.I would have locked him in my arms,I would have hid him in my heart;For oh! the waves are fraught with harms,And he and I so far apart.
Why has Spring one syllable lessThan any its fellow season?There may be some other reason,And I'm merely making a guess;But surely it hoards such wealthOf happiness, hope and health,Sunshine and musical sound,It may spare a foot from its nameYet all the sameSuperabound.Soft-named Summer,Most welcome comer,Brings almost everythingOver which we dream or singOr sigh;But then Summer wends its way,To-morrow,--to-day,--Good-bye!
Autumn,--the slow name lingers,While we likewise flag;It silences many singers;Its slow days drag,Yet hasten at speedTo leave us in chilly needFor Winter to strip indeed.In all-lack Winter,Dull of sense and of sound,We huddle and shiverBeside our splinterOf crackling pine,Snow in sky and snow on ground.Winter and coldCan't last for ever!To-day, to-morrow, the sun will shine;When we are old,But some still are young,Singing the songWhich others have sung,Ringing the bellsWhich others have rung,--Even so!We ourselves, who else?We ourselves longLong ago.
Not for me marring or making,Not for me giving or taking;I love my Love and he loves not me,I love my Love and my heart is breaking.Sweet is Spring in its lovely showing,Sweet the violet veiled in blowing,Sweet it is to love and be loved;Ah, sweet knowledge beyond my knowing!Who sighs for love sighs but for pleasure,Who wastes for love hoards up a treasure;Sweet to be loved and take no count,Sweet it is to love without measure.Sweet my Love whom I loved to try for,Sweet my Love whom I love and sigh for,Will you once love me and sigh for me,You my Love whom I love and die for?
Poor the pleasureDoled out by measure,Sweet though it be, while briefAs falling of the leaf;Poor is pleasureBy weight and measure.Sweet the sorrowWhich ends to-morrow;Sharp though it be and sore,It ends for evermore:Zest of sorrow,What ends to-morrow.
"Oh tell me once and tell me twiceAnd tell me thrice to make it plain,When we who part this weary day,When we who part shall meet again.""When windflowers blossom on the seaAnd fishes skim along the plain,Then we who part this weary day,Then you and I shall meet again.""Yet tell me once before we part,Why need we part who part in pain?If flowers must blossom on the sea,Why, we shall never meet again."My cheeks are paler than a rose,My tears are salter than the main,My heart is like a lump of iceIf we must never meet again.""Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,And live or die, for all's in vain;For life's in vain since we must part,And parting must not meet again"Till windflowers blossom on the sea,And fishes skim along the plain;Pale rose of roses let me be,Your breaking heart breaks mine again."
A million buds are born that never blow,That sweet with promise lift a pretty headTo blush and wither on a barren bedAnd leave no fruit to show.Sweet, unfulfilled. Yet have I understoodOne joy, by their fragility made plain:Nothing was ever beautiful in vain,Or all in vain was good.
"If you'll busk you as a brideAnd make ready,It's I will wed you with a ring,O fair lady.""Shall I busk me as a bride,I so bonny,For you to wed me with a ring,O boy Johnny?""When you've busked you as a brideAnd made ready,Who else is there to marry you,O fair lady?""I will find my lover out,I so bonny,And you shall bear my wedding-train,O boy Johnny."
Such a hubbub in the nests,Such a bustle and squeak!Nestlings, guiltless of a feather,Learning just to speak,Ask--"And how about the fashions?"From a cavernous beak.Perched on bushes, perched on hedges,Perched on firm hahas,Perched on anything that holds them,Gay papas and grave mammasTeach the knowledge-thirsty nestlings:Hear the gay papas.Robin says: "A scarlet waistcoatWill be all the wear,Snug, and also cheerful-lookingFor the frostiest air,Comfortable for the chest tooWhen one comes to plume and pair.""Neat gray hoods will be in vogue,"Quoth a Jackdaw: "Glossy gray,Setting close, yet setting easy,Nothing fly-away;Suited to our misty mornings,A la negligée."Flushing salmon, flushing sulphur,Haughty CockatoosAnswer--"Hoods may do for mornings,But for evenings chooseHigh head-dresses, curved like crescents,Such as well-bred persons use.""Top-knots, yes; yet more essentialStill, a train or tail,"Screamed the Peacock: "Gemmed and lustrousNot too stiff, and not too frail;Those are best which rearrange asFans, and spread or trail."Spoke the Swan, entrenched behindAn inimitable neck:"After all, there's nothing sweeterFor the lawn or lakeThan simple white, if fine and flakyAnd absolutely free from speck.""Yellow," hinted a Canary,"Warmer, not lessdistingué.""Peach color," put in a Lory,"Cannot lookoutré.""All the colors are in fashion,And are right," the Parrots say."Very well. But do contrastTints harmonious,"Piped a Blackbird, justly proudOf bill aurigerous;"Half the world may learn a lessonAs to that from us."Then a Stork took up the word:"Aim at height andchic:Not high heels, they're common; somehow,Stilted legs, not thick,Nor yet thin:" he just glanced downwardAnd snapped to his beak.Here a rustling and a whirring,As of fans outspread,Hinted that mammas felt anxiousLest the next thing saidMight prove less than quite judicious,Or even underbred.So a mother Auk resumedThe broken thread of speech:"Let colors sort themselves, my dears,Yellow, or red, or peach;The main points, as it seems to me,We mothers have to teach,"Are form and texture, elegance,An air reserved, sublime;The mode of wearing what we wearWith due regard to month and clime.But now, let's all compose ourselves,It's almost breakfast-time."A hubbub, a squeak, a bustle!Who cares to chatter or singWith delightful breakfast coming?Yet they whisper under the wing:"So we may wear whatever we like,Anything, everything!"
In my Autumn garden I was fainTo mourn among my scattered roses;Alas for that last rosebud which unclosesTo Autumn's languid sun and rainWhen all the world is on the wane!Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,Nor heard the nightingale in tune.Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,You are but coarse compared with roses:More choice, more dear that rosebud which unclosesFaint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,That least and last which cold winds balk;A rose it is though least and last of all,A rose to me though at the fall.
To think that this meaningless thing was ever a roseScentless, colorless,this!Will it ever be thus (who knows?)Thus with our bliss,If we wait till the close?Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the endSooner, later, at last,Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:An end locked fast,Bent we cannot re-bend.
All things that passAre woman's looking-glass;They show her how her bloom must fade,And she herself be laidWith withered roses in the shade;With withered roses and the fallen peach,Unlovely, out of reachOf summer joy that was.All things that passAre woman's tiring-glass;The faded lavender is sweet,Sweet the dead violetCulled and laid by and cared for yet;The dried-up violets and dried lavenderStill sweet, may comfort her,Nor need she cry Alas!All things that passAre wisdom's looking-glass;Being full of hope and fear, and stillBrimful of good or ill,According to our work and will;For there is nothing new beneath the sun;Our doings have been done,And that which shall be was.
Weary and weak,--accept my weariness;Weary and weak and downcast in my soul,With hope growing less and less,And with the goalDistant and dim,--accept my sore distress.I thought to reach the goal so long ago,At outset of the race I dreamed of rest,Not knowing what now I knowOf breathless haste,Of long-drawn straining effort across the waste.One only thing I knew, Thy love of me;One only thing I know, Thy sacred sameLove of me full and free,A craving flameOf selfless love of me which burns in Thee.How can I think of thee, and yet grow chill;Of Thee, and yet grow cold and nigh to death?Re-energize my will,Rebuild my faith;I will arise and run, Thou giving me breath.I will arise, repenting and in pain;I will arise, and smite upon my breastAnd turn to Thee again;Thou choosest best,Lead me along the road Thou makest plain.Lead me a little way, and carry meA little way, and listen to my sighs,And store my tears with Thee,And deign repliesTo feeble prayers;--O Lord, I will arise.
Does that lamp still burn in my Father's house,Which he kindled the night I went away?I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,And marked it gleam with a golden ray;Did he think to light me home some day?Hungry here with the crunching swine,Hungry harvest have I to reap;In a dream I count my Father's kine,I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,I watch his lambs that browse and leap.There is plenty of bread at home,His servants have bread enough and to spare;The purple wine-fat froths with foam,Oil and spices make sweet the air,While I perish hungry and bare.Rich and blessed those servants, ratherThan I who see not my Father's face!I will arise and go to my Father:--"Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,Grant me, Father, a servant's place."
I have desired, and I have been desired;But now the days are over of desire,Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;Where is the hire for which my life was hired?Oh vanity of vanities, desire!Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,And love a fount of tears outrunning measure;Oh vanity of vanities, desire!Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,The dross of life, of love, of spent desire;Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,--Oh vanity of vanities, desire!Oh vanity of vanities, desire;Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,Turning my garden plot to barren mire;Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Life flows down to death; we cannot bindThat current that it should not flee:Life flows down to death, as rivers findThe inevitable sea.Men work and think, but women feel;And so (for I'm a woman, I)And so I should be glad to dieAnd cease from impotence of zeal,And cease from hope, and cease from dread,And cease from yearnings without gain,And cease from all this world of pain,And be at peace among the dead.Hearts that die, by death renew their youth,Lightened of this life that doubts and dies;Silent and contented, while the TruthUnveiled makes them wise.Why should I seek and never findThat something which I have not had?Fair and unutterably sadThe world hath sought time out of mind;The world hath sought and I have sought,--Ah, empty world and empty I!For we have spent our strength for nought,And soon it will be time to die.Sparks fly upward toward their fount of fire,Kindling, flashing, hovering:--Kindle, flash, my soul; mount higher and higher,Thou whole burnt-offering!
I have done I know not what,--what have I done?My brother's blood, my brother's soul, doth cry:And I find no defence, find no reply,No courage more to run this race I runNot knowing what I have done, have left undone;Ah me, these awful unknown hours that flyFruitless it may be, fleeting fruitless byRank with death-savor underneath the sun.For what avails it that I did not knowThe deed I did? what profits me the pleaThat had I known I had not wronged him so?Lord Jesus Christ, my God, him pity Thou;Lord, if it may be, pity also me:In judgment pity, and in death, and now.
Thou Who hast borne all burdens, bear our load,Bear Thou our load whatever load it be;Our guilt, our shame, our helpless misery,Bear Thou Who only canst, O God my God.Seek us and find us, for we cannot TheeOr seek or find or hold or cleave unto:We cannot do or undo; Lord, undoOur self-undoing, for Thine is the keyOf all we are not though we might have been.Dear Lord, if ever mercy moved Thy mind,If so be love of us can move Thee yet,If still the nail-prints in Thy Hands are seen,Remember us,--yea, how shouldst Thou forget?Remember us for good, and seek, and find.
Each soul I might have succored, may have slain,All souls shall face me at the last Appeal,That great last moment poised for woe or weal,That final moment for man's bliss or bane.Vanity of vanities, yea all is vainWhich then will not avail or help or heal:Disfeatured faces, worn-out knees that kneel,Will more avail than strength or beauty then.Lord, by Thy Passion,--when Thy Face was marredIn sight of earth and hell tumultuous,And Thy heart failed in Thee like melting wax,And Thy Blood dropped more precious than the nard,--Lord, for Thy sake, not ours, supply our lacks,For Thine own sake, not ours, Christ, pity us.
The irresponsive silence of the land,The irresponsive sounding of the sea,Speak both one message of one sense to me:--Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so standThou too aloof bound with the flawless bandOf inner solitude; we bind not thee;But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand?--And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,And sometimes I remember days of oldWhen fellowship seemed not so far to seekAnd all the world and I seemed much less cold,And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.
Thus am I mine own prison. EverythingAround me free and sunny and at ease:Or if in shadow, in a shade of treesWhich the sun kisses, where the gay birds singAnd where all winds make various murmuring;Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;Where sounds are music, and where silencesAre music of an unlike fashioning.Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,And smile a moment and a moment sighThinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?But soon I put the foolish fancy by:I am not what I have nor what I do;But what I was I am, I am even I.
Therefore myself is that one only thingI hold to use or waste, to keep or give;My sole possession every day I live,And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bringFrom crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.And this myself as king unto my KingI give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;Who gives Himself to me, and bids me singA sweet new song of His redeemed set free;He bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?