THOUGH thy constant love I share,
Yet its gift is rarer;
In my youth I thought thee fair:
Thou art older and fairer!

Full of more than young delight
Now day and night are;
For the presence, then so bright,
Is closer, brighter.

In the haste of youth we miss
Its best of blisses:
Sweeter than the stolen kiss
Are the granted kisses.

Dearer than the words that hide
The love abiding,
Are the words that fondly chide,
When love needs chiding.

Higher than the perfect song
For which love longeth,
Is the tender fear of wrong,
That never wrongeth.

She whom youth alone makes dear
May awhile seem nearer:
Thou art mine so many a year,
The older, the dearer!

The Return Of The Goddess

Not as in youth, with steps outspeeding morn,
And cheeks all bright from rapture of the way,
But in strange mood, half cheerful, half forlorn,
She comes to me to-day.

Does she forget the trysts we used to keep,
When dead leaves rustled on autumnal ground?
Or the lone garret, whence she banished sleep
With threats of silver sound?

Does she forget how shone the happy eyes
When they beheld her?--how the eager tongue
Plied its swift oar through wave-like harmonies,
To reach her where she sung?

How at her sacred feet I cast me down?
How she upraised me to her bosom fair,
And from her garland shred the first light crown
That ever pressed my hair?

Though dust is on the leaves, her breath will bring
Their freshness back: why lingers she so long?
The pulseless air is waiting for her wing,
Dumb with unuttered song.

If tender doubt delay her on the road,
Oh let her haste, to find that doubt belied!
If shame for love unworthily bestowed,
That shame shall melt in pride.

If she but smile, the crystal calm will break
In music, sweeter than it ever gave,
As when a breeze breathes o'er some sleeping lake
And laughs in every wave.

The ripples of awakened song shall die
Kissing her feet, and woo her not in vain,
Until, as once, upon her breast I lie,
Pardoned and loved again.

The Song Of The Camp

“GIVE us a song!” the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.

The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.

There was a pause. A guardsman said,
“We storm the forts to-morrow;
Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow.”

They lay along the battery’s side,
Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde,
And from the banks of Shannon.

They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain’s glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang “Annie Laurie.”

Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,—
Their battle-eve confession.

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
But, as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier’s cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.

Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset’s embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.

And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!

And Irish Nora’s eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of “Annie Laurie.”

Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.