| |
| IT was cruel of them to part | |
| Two hearts in the gladsome spring, | |
| Two lovers’ hearts that had just burst forth | |
| With each blithe and beautiful thing; | |
| Cruel, but only half— | 5 |
| Had they known how to do us wrong, | |
| They had barr’d the way of the odorous May, | |
| They had shut out the wild bird’s song. | |
| |
| Your kisses were so embalm’d | |
| With spices of beech and fir, | 10 |
| That they haunt my lips in the dead o’ the night | |
| If the night-winds do but stir; | |
| When I rise with the rising dawn, | |
| To let in the dewy south, | |
| Like a fountain’s spray, or the pride of the day, | 15 |
| They fall on my thirsty mouth. | |
| |
| They should never have let our love | |
| Abroad in the wild free woods, | |
| If they meant it to slumber on, cold and tame, | |
| As the lock’d-up winter floods; | 20 |
| They should never have let it hide | |
| ’Neath the beeches’ lucent shade, | |
| Or the up-turn’d arch of the tender larch | |
| That blush’d as it heaved and sway’d. | |
| |
| Now the young and passionate year | 25 |
| Is no longer itself, but you; | |
| Its conniving woods, with their raptures and thrills, | |
| You have leaven’d them through and through. | |
| The troubadour nightingale | |
| And the dove that o’erbends the bough, | 30 |
| Have both learnt, and teach, the trick of your speech, | |
| As they echo it vow for vow. | |
| |
| My heart is heavy for scorn, | |
| Mine eyes with impatient tears, | |
| But the heaven looks blue through the cherry-blooms, | 35 |
| And preaches away my fears! | |
| From the burning bush of the gorse, | |
| Alive with murmurous sound, | |
| I hear a voice, and it says, ‘Rejoice!’ | |
| I stand as on holy ground. | 40 |
| |
| O flower of life! O Love! | |
| God’s love is at thy root; | |
| They may dim thy glory, but cannot blight | |
| Or hinder thy golden fruit. | |
| Yet all the same, I am mad, | 45 |
| However the end may fall, | |
| That they dare to wring, in the gladsome spring, | |
| Two hearts that were gladdest of all. | |
| |
