Part 137

Then cries of pain, and arms outreaching, - The beck grows wider and swift and deep: Passionate words as of one beseeching: The loud beck drowns them: we walk, and weep.

V A yellow moon in splendor drooping, A tired queen with her state oppressed, Low by rushes and swordgrass stooping, Lies she soft on the waves at rest.

The desert heavens have felt her sadness; Her earth will weep her some dewy tears; The wild beck ends her tune of gladness, And goeth stilly as soul that fears.

We two walk on in our grassy places On either marge of the moonlit flood, With the moon's own sadness in our faces, Where joy is withered, blossom and bud.

VI A shady freshness, chafers whirring; A little piping of leaf-hid birds; A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring; A cloud to the eastward snowy as curds.

Bare grassy slopes, where kids are tethered, Round valleys like nests all ferny-lined, Round hills, with fluttering tree-tops feathered, Swell high in their freckled robes behind.

A rose-flush tender, a thrill, a quiver, When golden gleams to the tree-tops glide; A flashing edge for the milk-white river, The beck, a river - with still sleek tide.

Broad and white, and polished as silver, On she goes under fruit-laden trees: Sunk in leafage cooeth the culver, And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties.

Glitters the dew, and shines the river, Up comes the lily and dries her bell; But two are walking apart forever, And wave their hands for a mute farewell.

VII A braver swell, a swifter sliding; The river hasteth, her banks recede. Wing-like sails on her bosom gliding Bear down the lily, and drown the reed.

Stately prows are rising and bowing (Shouts of mariners winnow the air), And level sands for banks endowing The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair.

While, O my heart! as white sails shiver, And clouds are passing, and banks stretch wide, How hard to follow, with lips that quiver, That moving speck on the far-off side.

Farther, farther; I see it, know it - My eyes brim over, it melts away: Only my heart to my heart shall show it As I walk desolate day by day.

VIII And yet I know past all doubting, truly, - A knowledge greater than grief can dim, - I know, as he loved, he will love me duly, - Yea, better, e'en better than I love him.

And as I walk by the vast calm river, The awful river so dread to see, I say, "Thy breadth and thy depth forever Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me."

Jean Ingelow [1820-1897]

MY PLAYMATE

The pines were dark on Ramoth hill, Their song was soft and low; The blossoms in the sweet May wind Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet, The orchard birds sang clear; The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin, She laid her hand in mine: What more could ask the bashful boy Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May: The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round Of uneventful years; Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go.

There haply with her jeweled hands She smooths her silken gown, - No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems, - If ever the pines of Ramoth wood Are sounding in her dreams.