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!

From “the Sunshine Of The Gods”

AH, moment not to be purchased,
Not to be won by prayer,
Not by toil to be conquered,
But given, lest one despair,
By the Gods in wayward kindness,
Stay—thou art all too fair!
Hour of the dancing measures,
Sylph of the dew and rainbow,
Let us clutch thy shining hair!

For the mist is blown from the mind,
For the impotent yearning is over,
And the wings of the thoughts have power:
In the warmth and the glow creative
Existence mellows and ripens,
And a crowd of swift surprises
Sweetens the fortunate hour;
Till a shudder of rapture loosens
The tears that hang on the eyelids
Like a breeze-suspended shower,
With a sense of heavenly freshness
Blown from beyond the sunshine,
And the blood, like the sap of the roses,
Breaks into bud and flower.

’T is the Sunshine of the Gods,
The sudden light that quickens,
Unites the nimble forces,
And yokes the shy expression
To the thoughts that waited long,—
Waiting and wooing vainly:
But now they meet like lovers
In the time of willing increase,
Each warming each, and giving
The kiss that maketh strong:
And the mind feels fairest May-time
In the marriage of its passions,
For Thought is one with Speech,
In the Sunshine of the Gods,
And Speech is one with Song!

Then a rhythmic pulse makes order
In the troops of wandering fancies:
Held in soft subordination,
Lo! they follow, lead, or fly.
The fields of their feet are endless,
And the heights and the deeps are open
To the glance of the equal sky;
And the Masters sit no longer
In inaccessible distance,
But give to the haughtiest question,
Smiling, a sweet reply.

I' ve drunk Sicilia's crimson wine!
The blazing vintage pressed
From grapes on Etna's breast,
What time the mellowing autumn sun
did shine:
I ‘ve drunk the wine!
I feel its blood divine
Poured on the sluggish tide of mine,
Till, kindling slow,
Its fountains glow
With the light that swims
On their trembling brims,
And a molten sunrise floods my limbs!

What do I here?
I ‘ve drunk the wine,
And lo! the bright blue heaven is clear
Above the ocean's bluer sphere,
Seen through the long arcades of pine,
Inwoven and arched with vine!
The glades are green below;
The temple shines afar;
Above, old Etna's snow
Sparkles with many an icy star:
I see the mountain and its marble wall,
Where gleaming waters fall
And voices call,
Singing and calling
Like chorals falling
Through pearly doors of some Olympian hall,
Where Love holds bacchanal.

Sicilian wine! Sicilian wine!
Summer, and Music, and Song divine
Are thine, — all thine!
A sweet wind over the roses plays;
The wild bee hums at my languid ear;
The mute-winged moth serenely strays
On the downy atmosphere,
Like hovering Sleep, that overweighs
My lids with his shadow, yet comes not near.
Who ‘11 share with me this languor?
With me the juice of Etna sip?
Who press the goblet's lip,
Refusing mine the while with love's enchanting
anger?
Would I were young Adonis now!
With what an ardor bold
Within my arms I ‘d fold
Fair Aphrodite of Idalian mould,
And let the locks that hide her gleaming brow
Fall o'er my shoulder as she lay
With the fair swell of her immortal breast
Upon my bosom pressed,
Giving Olympian thrills to its enamored clay!

Bacchus and Pan have fled:
No heavy Satyr crushes with his tread
The verdure of the meadow ground,
But in their stead
The Nymphs are leading a bewildering round,
Vivid and light, as o'er some flowering rise
A dance of butterflies,
Their tossing hair with slender lilies crowned,
And greener ivy than o'erran
The brows of Bacchus and the reed of Pan!

I faint, I die:
The flames expire,
That made my blood a fluid fire:
Steeped in delicious weariness I lie.
O, lay me in some pearled shell,
Soft-balanced on the rippling sea,
Where sweet, cheek-kissing airs may wave
Their fresh wings over me;
Let me be wafted with the swell
Of Nereid voices; let no billow rave
To break the cool green crystal of the sea.
For I will wander free
Past the blue islands and the fading shores,
To Calpe and the far Azores,
And still beyond, and wide away,
Beneath the dazzling wings of tropic day, .
Where, on unruffled seas,
Sleep the green isles of the Hesperides.

The Triton's trumpet calls:
I hear, I wake, I rise:
The sound peals up the skies,
And mellowed Echo falls
In answer back from Heaven's cerulean walls.
Give me the lyre that Orpheus played upon,
Or bright Hyperion, —
Nay, rather come, thou of the mighty bow,
Come thou below,
Leaving thy steeds unharnessed go!
Sing as thou wilt, my voice shall dare to follow,
And I will sun me in thine awful glow,
Divine Apollo!
Then thou thy lute shalt twine
With Bacchic tendrils of the glorious vine
That gave Sicilian wine:
And henceforth when the breezes run
Over its clusters, ripening in the sun,
The leaves shall still be playing,
Unto thy lute its melody repaying,
And I, that quaff, shall evermore be free
To mount thy car and ride the heavens with thee!

The Quaker Widow

THEE finds me in the garden, Hannah,—come in! ’T is kind of thee
To wait until the Friends were gone, who came to comfort me.
The still and quiet company a peace may give, indeed,
But blessed is the single heart that comes to us at need.

Come, sit thee down! Here is the bench where Benjamin would sit
On First-day afternoons in spring, and watch the swallows flit:
He loved to smell the sprouting box, and hear the pleasant bees
Go humming round the lilacs and through the apple-trees.

I think he loved the spring: not that he cared for flowers: most men
Think such things foolishness,—but we were first acquainted then,
One spring: the next he spoke his mind; the third I was his wife,
And in the spring (it happened so) our children entered life.

He was but seventy-five; I did not think to lay him yet
In Kennett graveyard, where at Monthly Meeting first we met.
The Father’s mercy shows in this: ’t is better I should be
Picked out to bear the heavy cross—alone in age—than he.

We ’ve lived together fifty years: it seems but one long day,
One quiet Sabbath of the heart, till he was called away;
And as we bring from Meeting-time a sweet contentment home,
So, Hannah, I have store of peace for all the days to come.

I mind (for I can tell thee now) how hard it was to know
If I had heard the spirit right, that told me I should go;
For father had a deep concern upon his mind that day,
But mother spoke for Benjamin,—she knew what best to say.

Then she was still: they sat awhile: at last she spoke again,
“The Lord incline thee to the right!” and “Thou shalt have him, Jane!”
My father said. I cried. Indeed, ’t was not the least of shocks,
For Benjamin was Hicksite, and father Orthodox.

I thought of this ten years ago, when daughter Ruth we lost:
Her husband’s of the world, and yet I could not see her crossed.
She wears, thee knows, the gayest gowns, she hears a hireling priest—
Ah, dear! the cross was ours: her life’s a happy one, at least.

Perhaps she ’ll wear a plainer dress when she ’s as old as I,—
Would thee believe it, Hannah? once I felt temptation nigh!
My wedding-gown was ashen silk, too simple for my taste;
I wanted lace around the neck, and a ribbon at the waist.

How strange it seemed to sit with him upon the women’s side!
I did not dare to lift my eyes: I felt more fear than pride,
Till, “in the presence of the Lord,” he said, and then there came
A holy strength upon my heart, and I could say the same.

I used to blush when he came near, but then I showed no sign;
With all the meeting looking on, I held his hand in mine.
It seemed my bashfulness was gone, now I was his for life:
Thee knows the feeling, Hannah,—thee too, hast been a wife.

As home we rode, I saw no fields look half so green as ours;
The woods were coming into leaf, the meadows full of flowers;
The neighbors met us in the lane, and every face was kind,—
’T is strange how lively everything comes back upon my mind.

I see, as plain as thee sits there, the wedding dinner spread:
At our own table we were guests, with father at the head;
And Dinah Passmore helped us both,—’t was she stood up with me,
And Abner Jones with Benjamin,—and now they ’re gone, all three!

It is not right to wish for death; the Lord disposes best.
His Spirit comes to quiet hearts, and fits them for His rest;
And that He halved our little flock was merciful, I see:
For Benjamin has two in heaven, and two are left with me.

Eusebius never cared to farm,—’t was not his call, in truth,
And I must rent the dear old place, and go to daughter Ruth.
Thee ’ll say her ways are not like mine,—young people now-a-days
Have fallen sadly off, I think, from all the good old ways.

But Ruth is still a Friend at heart; she keeps the simple tongue,
The cheerful, kindly nature we loved when she was young;
And it was brought upon my mind, remembering her, of late,
That we on dress and outward things perhaps lay too much weight.

I once heard Jesse Kersey say, a spirit clothed with grace,
And pure almost as angels are, may have a homely face.
And dress may be of less account: the Lord will look within:
The soul it is that testifies of righteousness or sin.

Thee must n’t be too hard on Ruth: she ’s anxious I should go,
And she will do her duty as a daughter should, I know.
’T is hard to change so late in life, but we must be resigned:
The Lord looks down contentedly upon a willing mind.