Ii

“The rhyme is mine, but yours The thought and all the music, springing from The rareness of the love that dawned on me A little while to make my sad life glad. Should I regret the sunset it refused, Since all my morn was richer than the world? Or that my day should stride without a change Of crimson, or of purple, or of gold, Into the barren blackness where the moon And all God’s stars lay dead? Should I complain, Upbraid or censure or one moment curse, I with my morning? ’T is a memory That stains the midnight now: one wild-rose ray Laid like a finger pointing me the path I follow, and I go rejoicingly.

Our love was very young (nor had it aged-- If we had lived long lifetimes--here in me), When one day, strolling in the sun, you spoke Words I perceived should hint a coming change: I made three stanzas of the thought, you see: But now ’t is like the sea-shell that suggests, And still associates us with the sea In its vague song and elfland workmanship. Yet it has lost a something that it had There by the far sand’s foaming; something rare, A different beauty like an element:

I wonder on what life will do When love is loser of all love; When life still longs to love anew And has not love enough:-- I ’ll turn my heart into a ray, And wait--a day?

I wonder on what love will hold When life is weary of all life; And life and love have both grown old With scars of sin and strife:-- I’ll change my soul into a flower, And wait--an hour?

I wonder on why men forget The life that love made laugh; and why Weak women will remember yet The life that love made sigh:-- I’ll sing my thought into a song, And wait--how long?