Rose Terry Cooke: Verses about Alone

Darlings of the forest!
Blossoming alone
When Earth's grief is sorest
For her jewels gone
Ere the last snow-drift melts, your tender buds have blown.

Tinged with color faintly,
Like the morning sky,
Or more pale and saintly,
Wrapped in leaves ye lie,
Even as children sleep in faith's simplicity.

There the wild wood-robin
Hymns your solitude,
And the rain comes sobbing
Through the budding wood,
While the low south wind sighs, but dare not be more rude.

Were your pure lips fashioned
Out of air and dew:
Starlight unimpassioned,
Dawn's most tender hue
And scented by the woods that gathered sweets for you?

Fairest and most lonely,
From the world apart,
Made for beauty only,
Veiled from Nature's heart,
With such unconscious grace as makes the dream of Art!

Were not mortal sorrow
An immortal shade,
Then would I tomorrow
Such a flower be made,
And live in the dear woods where my lost childhood played.

Flutter thy new wings lightly,
Poor, fearful little bird!
Nor grasp thy bough so tightly;
Hast thou not heard
That flood of loving song wherewith the leaves are stirred?

Still poised: afraid of flying!
What softer mother-call,
Through the warm sunshine crying,
Could woo thee not to fall?
Doth not its sweetness say,-'Dear child, fear not at all?'

Now the cool wind shall aid thee;
Spread thy new wings and fly!
The master-hand that made thee,
Gave heart and wings to try.
The worst fate that befalls can only be to die.

Ah! from the light branch springing,
My little darling flies,
And that low, tender sighing
In tenderer silence dies,
While with adventurous plume her nestling tempts the skies.

His new-discovered pinions
Shall bear thy bird away,
Into those far dominions,
Beyond the dawning day,
And thou, poor mother-heart, in solitude shalt stay.

Yet some most weary proving
Taught him to spread the wing,
And some most lonely loving
Taught thee such notes to sing.
God keep both song and strength to decorate His Spring!

Loves serene, uncarnate Graces!
Born of pure dreams in lonely places,
Where the black untrodden earth
Rejects the dancing sunshine's mirth,
And slow leaves, dropping through the wood,
Stir to sound the solitude.
Through what tranquil, odorous airs,
Undisturbed by sighs or prayers,
Paler than pale alabaster
Wrought to life by some old master,
Did ye into vision rise,
And nocturnal moths surprise?

Clustered in undraperied whiteness,
Pierced by stars to lucent brightness,
Cooler than a baby's lips,
Pure as dew that nightly drips,
Utterly intact and calm,
Cold to summer's rapturous balm,
So divine that in ye lingers
A shuddering dread of mortal fingers,
Though their tips be pink and fine,
Under the caress ye pine,
Blackened with the passion-fever
That your cool bells shun forever.

Sweetest souls of beauty-lovers,
Above your cups the gold bee hovers,
In sequestered maze and awe,
Repelled by instinct's sacred law;
Knowing well no sweetness lies
In your frosted chalices.
Never bird, nor bee, nor moth,
Inebriate with sunny sloth,
Dare intrude on hallowed ground,
Cease thyself, vain rhythmic sound!