Divided

Hand in hand, while the sun peered over,

We lapped the grass on that youngling spring;
Swept back its rushes, smoothed its clover,
And said, "Let us follow it westering."

III

A dappled sky, a world of meadows,
Circling above us the black rooks fly
Forward, backward; lo their dark shadows
Flit on the blossoming tapestry;-

Flit on the beck; for her long grass parteth

As hair from a maid's bright eyes blown back:

And, lo, the sun like a lover darteth

His flattering smile on her wayward track.

Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather
Till one steps over the tiny strand,
So narrow, in sooth, that still together
On either brink we go hand in hand.

The beck grows wider, the hands must sever.
On either margin, our songs all done,
We move apart, while she singeth ever,
Taking the course of the stooping sun.

He prays,

"Come over,"-I may not follow;
I cry, "Return,"--but he cannot come:
We speak, we laugh, but with voices hollow;
Our hands are hanging, our hearts are numb.

IV

A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer,
A little talking of outward things:
The careless beck is a merry dancer,
Keeping sweet time to the air she sings.

A little pain when the beck grows wider;
"Cross to me now; for her wavelets swell";
"I may not cross,"-and the voice beside her
Faintly reacheth, though heeded well.

949

No backward path; ah! no returning;

No second crossing that ripple's flow; "Come to me now, for the west is burning; Come ere it darkens."—"Ah, no! ah, no!"

Then cries of pain, and arms outreaching,-
The beck grows wider and swift and deep:
Passionate words as of one beseeching:

The loud beck drowns them: we walk, and weep.

V

A yellow moon in splendor drooping,

A tired queen with her state oppressed,
Low by rushes and swordgrass stooping,
Lies she soft on the wayes at rest.

The desert heavens have felt her sadness;
Her earth will weep her some dewy tears;
The wild beck ends her tune of gladness,
And goeth stilly as soul that fears.

We two walk on in our grassy places

On either marge of the moonlit flood, With the moon's own sadness in our faces, Where joy is withered, blossom and bud,

VI

A shady freshness, chafers whirring;
A little piping of leaf-hid birds;
A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring;

A cloud to the eastward snowy as curds.

Bare grassy slopes, where kids are tethered,
Round valleys like nests all ferny-lined,
Round hills, with fluttering tree-tops feathered,
Swell high in their freckled robes behind,

A rose-flush tender, a thrill, a quiver,
When golden gleams to the tree-tops glide;
A flashing edge for the milk-white river,
The beck, a river-with still sleek tide.

Divided

Broad and white, and polished as silver,
On she goes under fruit-laden trees:
Sunk in leafage cooeth the culver,

And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties.

Glitters the dew, and shines the river,
Up comes the lily and dries her bell;
But two are walking apart forever,

And wave their hands for a mute farewell.

A braver swell, a swifter sliding;

The river hasteth, her banks recede.
Wing-like sails on her bosom gliding
Bear down the lily, and drown the reed.

Stately prows are rising and bowing
(Shouts of mariners winnow the air),
And level sands for banks endowing

The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair.

While, O my heart! as white sails shiver,

And clouds are passing, and banks stretch wide,

How hard to follow, with lips that quiver,

That moving speck on the far-off side.

Farther, farther; I see it, know it

My eyes brim over, it melts away: Only my heart to my heart shall show it As I walk desolate day by day.

VIII

And yet I know past all doubting, truly,-
A knowledge greater than grief can dim,-
I know, as he loved, he will love me duly,--
Yea, better, e'en better than I love him.

And as I walk by the vast calm river,
The awful river so dread to see,

I say, "Thy breadth and thy depth forever

951

Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me." Jean Ingelow [1820-1897]

MY PLAYMATE

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home,

And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine:
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May:

The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round

Of uneventful years;

Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn cars.

She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.

There haply with her jeweled hands
She smooths her silken gown,—
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.

My Playmate

The wild grapes wait us by the brook,

The brown nuts on the hill,

And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,-
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice:
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?

What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,-
That other laps with nuts are filled,
And other hands with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern

A sweeter memory blow;

And there in spring the veeries sing

The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,-
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!

953

John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892]