III
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ll the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!Ere spring was going--ah! spring is gone!And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on. All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,Browned at the edges, turned in a day;And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way! _The Shroud_ Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,--O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other! (I, that would not wait to wearMy own bridal things,In a dress dark as my hairMade my answerings. I, to-night, that till he cameCould not, could not wait,In a gown as bright as flameHeld for them the gate.) Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,--O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other! _The Dream_ Love, if I weep it will not matter,And if you laugh I shall not care;Foolish am I to think about it,But it is good to feel you there. Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--White and awful the moonlight reachedOver the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,There was a shutter loose,--it screeched! Swung in the wind,--and no wind blowing!--I was afraid, and turned to you,Put out my hand to you for comfort,--And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew, Under my hand the moonlight lay!Love, if you laugh I shall not care,But if I weep it will not matter,--Ah, it is good to feel you there! _Indifference_ I said,--for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,--“I’ll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed;But I’ll never leave my pillow, though there be someAs would let him in--and take him in with tears!” I said.I lay,--for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,--I lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep;And he found me at my window with my big cloak on,All sorry with the tears some folks might weep! _Witch-Wife_ She is neither pink nor pale,And she never will be all mine;She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs;In the sun ’tis a woe to me!And her voice is a string of coloured beads,Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can,And her ways to my ways resign;But she was not made for any man,And she never will be all mine. _Blight_ Hard seeds of hate I plantedThat should by now be grown,--Rough stalks, and from thick stamensA poisonous pollen blown,And odours rank, unbreathable,From dark corollas thrown! At dawn from my damp gardenI shook the chilly dew;The thin boughs locked behind meThat sprang to let me through;The blossoms slept,--I sought a placeWhere nothing lovely grew. And there, when day was breaking,I knelt and looked around:The light was near, the silenceWas palpitant with sound;I drew my hate from out my breastAnd thrust it in the ground. Oh, ye so fiercely tended,Ye little seeds of hate!I bent above your growingEarly and noon and late,Yet are ye drooped and pitiful,--I cannot rear ye straight! The sun seeks out my garden,No nook is left in shade,No mist nor mould nor mildewEndures on any blade,Sweet rain slants under every bough:Ye falter, and ye fade. _When the Year Grows Old_ I cannot but rememberWhen the year grows old--October--November--How she disliked the cold! She used to watch the swallowsGo down across the sky,And turn from the windowWith a little sharp sigh. And often when the brown leavesWere brittle on the ground,And the wind in the chimneyMade a melancholy sound, She had a look about herThat I wish I could forget--The look of a scared thingSitting in a net! Oh, beautiful at nightfallThe soft spitting snow!And beautiful the bare boughsRubbing to and fro! But the roaring of the fire,And the warmth of fur,And the boiling of the kettleWere beautiful to her! I cannot but rememberWhen the year grows old--October--November--How she disliked the cold! _Sonnets_ I Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fairThan small white single poppies,--I can bearThy beauty; though I bend before thee, thoughFrom left to right, not knowing where to go,I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor thereFind any refuge from thee, yet I swearSo has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.Like him who day by day unto his draughtOf delicate poison adds him one drop moreTill he may drink unharmed the death of ten,Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffedEach hour more deeply than the hour before,I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.
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