| |
| THEY did not quarrel; but betwixt them came | |
| Combining circumstances, urging on | |
| Towards the final ending of their loves. | |
| Could they have smote and stung with bitter words, | |
| Then sued for pardon on a blotted page, | 5 |
| And met, and kissed, and dried their mutual tears, | |
| This had not been. But every day the breach | |
| Widened without their knowledge. Time went by, | |
| And led their footsteps into devious paths, | |
| Each one approving, nay, with waving hand | 10 |
| Praying God-speed the other, since both roads | |
| Seemed fair, and led away from sordid things, | |
| And each one urged the other on to fame. | |
| He was a very Cæsar for ambition; | |
| And she, a simple singer in the woods,— | 15 |
| Athirst for Nature—ever needing her | |
| To crown a holiday, and sanctify | |
| As with a mother’s blessing, idle hours. | |
| A bramble-blossom trailing in the way | |
| Seemed more to her than all his talk of Courts | 20 |
| And Kings and Constitutions; but his aims | |
| Rose far above the soaring of the lark, | |
| That leaves the peeping daisy out of sight. | |
| The State required him, and he could not stay | |
| Loit’ring and ling’ring in the ‘primrose path | 25 |
| Of dalliance;’ and so it came to pass, | |
| These two, that once were one, are two again, | |
| And she is lone in spirit, having known | |
| A sweeter thing than pipe of nightingale | |
| Or scent of hawthorn, and yet loving these | 30 |
| And clinging to them still, though desolate, | |
| And, like the lady of the ‘Lord of Burleigh;’ | |
| Lacking the ‘Landscape-painter’ in her life. | |
| Thus, all her songs are sad—of withered leaves, | |
| And blighted hopes, and echoes of the past, | 35 |
| And early death; and yet she cannot die, | |
| But lives and sings, as he, too, lives and climbs, | |
| Far from the sight of waving meadow-grass; | |
And so they walk divided.
Were it well | |
| So soon to sever such a tender tie, | 40 |
| With never a reproach and none to blame, | |
| And not one tear? With friendly greetings now | |
| At careless meetings, cold and unforeseen, | |
| As though no better days had ever dawned; | |
And all—for what?….
Nay, be it for the best! | 45 |
| Who knows, if we love well till we regret | |
| And sigh, in sadness, for a good thing gone? | |
Thus, all may work to wisdom.
Wherefore, wake | |
| With wind-strewn cuckoo-bloom and daffodil, | |
| Fond foolish love of spring-tide and hot youth, | 50 |
| And die when these have perished!…. | |
| |
