Part 52

"Well, so I came."

Robert Frost [1875-

WHERE LOVE IS

By the rosy cliffs of Devon, on a green hill's crest, I would build me a house as a swallow builds its nest; I would curtain it with roses, and the wind should breathe to me The sweetness of the roses and the saltness of the sea.

Where the Tuscan olives whiten in the hot blue day, I would hide me from the heat in a little hut of gray, While the singing of the husbandmen should scale my lattice green From the golden rows of barley that the poppies blaze between.

Narrow is the street, Dear, and dingy are the walls Wherein you wait my coming as the twilight falls. All day with dreams I gild the grime till at your step I start - Ah Love, my country in your arms - my home upon your heart!

Amelia Josephine Burr [1878-

THAT DAY YOU CAME

Such special sweetness was about That day God sent you here, I knew the lavender was out, And it was mid of year.

Their common way the great winds blew, The ships sailed out to sea; Yet ere that day was spent I knew Mine own had come to me.

As after song some snatch of tune Lurks still in grass or bough, So, somewhat of the end o' June Lurks in each weather now.

The young year sets the buds astir, The old year strips the trees; But ever in my lavender I hear the brawling bees.

Lizette Woodworth Reese [1856-1935]

AMANTIUM IRAE

When this, our rose, is faded, And these, our days, are done, In lands profoundly shaded From tempest and from sun: Ah, once more come together, Shall we forgive the past, And safe from worldly weather Possess our souls at last?

Or in our place of shadows Shall still we stretch a hand To green, remembered meadows, Of that old pleasant land? And vainly there foregathered, Shall we regret the sun? The rose of love, ungathered? The bay, we have not won?

Ah, child! the world's dark marges May lead to Nevermore, The stately funeral barges Sail for an unknown shore, And love we vow to-morrow, And pride we serve to-day: What if they both should borrow Sad hues of yesterday?

Our pride! Ah, should we miss it, Or will it serve at last? Our anger, if we kiss it, Is like a sorrow past. While roses deck the garden, While yet the sun is high, Doff sorry pride: for pardon, Or ever love go by.

Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]

IN A ROSE GARDEN

A hundred years from now, dear heart, We shall not care at all. It will not matter then a whit, The honey or the gall. The summer days that we have known Will all forgotten be and flown; The garden will be overgrown Where now the roses fall.

A hundred years from now, dear heart, We shall not mind the pain; The throbbing crimson tide of life Will not have left a stain. The song we sing together, dear, The dream we dream together here, Will mean no more than means a tear Amid a summer rain.

A hundred years from now, dear heart, The grief will all be o'er; The sea of care will surge in vain Upon a careless shore. These glasses we turn down to-day Here at the parting of the way - We shall be wineless then as they, And shall not mind it more.

A hundred years from now, dear heart, We'll neither know nor care What came of all life's bitterness, Or followed love's despair. Then fill the glasses up again, And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain; We'll build one castle more in Spain, And dream one more dream there.

John Bennett [1865-

"GOD BLESS YOU, DEAR, TO-DAY"

If there be graveyards in the heart From which no roses spring, A place of wrecks and old gray tombs From which no birds take wing, Where linger buried hopes and dreams Like ghosts among the graves, Why, buried hopes are dismal things, And lonely ghosts are knaves!

If there come dreary winter days, When summer roses fall And lie, forgot, in withered drifts Along the garden wall; If all the wreaths a lover weaves Turn thorns upon the brow, - Then out upon the silly fool Who makes not merry now!