And I, who near him stood,
Said: When the crop comes, then
There will be sobbing and sighing,
Weeping and wailing and crying,
Flame, and ashes, and woe.
It was an autumn day
When next I went that way.
And what, think you, did I see,
What was it that I heard,
What music was in the air?
The song of a sweet-voiced bird?
Nay but the songs of many,
Thrilled through with praise and prayer.
Of all those voices not any
Were sad of memory;
But a sea of sunlight flowed,
A golden harvest glowed,
And I said: Thou only art wise,
God of the earth and skies!
And I praise Thee, again and again,
For the Sower whose name is Pain.
XXXI "WHEN THE LAST DOUBT IS DOUBTED"
WHEN the last doubt is doubted,
The last black shadow flown;
When the last foe is routed;
When the night is over and gone
Then, Love, O then! there will be rest and peace:
Sweet peace and rest that never thou hast known.
When the hope that in thee moveth
Is born and brought to sight;
When past is the pain that proveth
The worth of thy new delight -
O then, Love! then there will be joy and peace:
Deep peace and joy, bright morning after night.
As melting snow leaves bare the mountain-side spaces that grow wider and more wide,
So melted from the sky the cloudy veil
That hid the face of sunrise. Land and ledge
And waste of glittering waters sent a glare
Back to the smiting sun. The trembling air
Lay, sea on sea, along the horizon's edge;
And on that upper ocean, clear as glass,
The tall ships followed with deep-mirrored sail
Like clouds wind-moved that follow and that pass;
And on that upper ocean, far and fair,
Floated low islands all unseen before.
Green grew the ocean shaken through with light,
And blue the heavens faint-fleckt with plumy white.
Like pennants on the wind, from o'er the rocks
The birds whirled seaward in shrill-piping flocks-
And through the dawn, as through the shadowy night,
The sound of waves that break upon the shore!
LOVE, Love, my love,
The best things are the truest!
When the earth lies shadowy dark below,
O then the heavens are bluest!
Deep the blue of the sky,
And sharp the gleam of the stars,
And O, more bright against the night
The Aurora's crimson bars!
THAT I should love thee seemeth meet and wise,
So beautiful thou art that he were mad
Who in thy countenance no pleasure had;
Who felt not the still music of thine eyes
Fall on his forehead, as the evening skies
The music of the stars feel and are glad.
But o'er my mind one doubt still cast a shade
Till in my thought this answer did arise:
That thou shouldst love me is not wise or meet,
For like thee, Love, I am not beautiful;
And yet I think that haply in my face
Thou findest a true beauty; this poor, dull,
Disfigured mirror dimly may repeat
A little part of thy most heavenly grace.
WE are alike, and yet, O strange and sweet! Each in the other difference discerns;
So the torn strands the maiden's finger turns Opposing ways, when they again do meet Clasp each in each, as flame clasps into heat;
So when this hand on this cool bosom burns,
Each sense is lost in the other. So two urns
Do, side by side, the selfsame lines repeat,
But various color gives a lovelier grace,
And each by contrast still more fine has grown.
Thus, Love, it was, I did forget thy face
As more and more to me thy soul was known;
Vague in my mind it grew till, in its place,
Another came I knew not from my own.
NOT from the whole wide world I chose thee -
Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea!
The wide, wide world could not inclose thee,
For thou art the whole wide world to me.
ONCE when a maiden maidenly went by,
Or when I found some wonder in the grass,
Or when a purple sunset slow did pass,
Or a great star rushed silent through the sky;
Once when I heard a singing ecstasy,
Or saw the moon's face in the river's glass —
Then I remembered that for me, alas!
This beauty must for ever and ever die.
But now I may thus sorrow never more;
From fleeting beauty thou hast torn the pall;
Of beauty, Love, thou art the soul and core;
And tho' the empty shadow fading fall,
Tho' lesser birds lift up their wings and soar, -
In having thee alone, Love, I have all.
VI "I COUNT MY TIME BY TIMES THAT
I MEET THEE"
I COUNT my time by times that I meet thee;
These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons,
And nights; these my old moons and my new moons
Slow fly the hours, or fast the hours do flee,
If thou art far from or art near to me;
If thou art far, the bird tunes are no tunes;
If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes-
Darkness is light, and sorrow cannot be.
Thou art my dream come true, and thou my dream;
The air I breathe, the world wherein I dwell;
My journey's end thou art, and thou the way;
Thou art what I would be, yet only seem;
Thou art my heaven and thou art my hell;
Thou art my ever-living judgment-day.
YEARS have flown since I knew thee first,
And I know thee as water is known of thirst;
Yet I knew thee of old at the first sweet sight,
And thou art strange to me, Love, to-night.
O STRANGE Spring days, when from the shivering ground
Love riseth, wakening from his dreamful swound And, frightened, in the stream his face hath found!
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