| |
| MUST I, who walk alone, | |
| come on it still, | |
| This Puck of plants | |
| The wise would do away with, | |
| The sunshine slants | 5 |
| To play with, | |
| Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover, | |
| Which once in Parting for a time | |
| That then seemed long, | |
| Ere time for you was over, | 10 |
| We sealed our own? | |
| Do you remember yet, | |
| O Soul beyond the stars, | |
| Beyond the uttermost dim bars | |
| Of space, | 15 |
| Dear Soul, who found earth sweet, | |
| Remember by love’s grace, | |
| In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song, | |
| How suddenly we halted in our climb, | |
| Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill, | 20 |
| Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet, | |
| And gave them as a token | |
| Each to Each, | |
| In lieu of speech, | |
| In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken, | 25 |
| Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet | |
| With a strange dew of tears? | |
| |
| So it began, | |
| This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover, | |
| To be our tenderest language. All the years | 30 |
| It lent a new zest to the summer hours, | |
| As each of us went scheming to surprise | |
| The other with our homely, laureate flowers. | |
| Sonnets and odes | |
| Fringing our daily roads. | 35 |
| Can amaranth and asphodel | |
| Bring merrier laughter to your eyes? | |
| Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes, | |
| Keep any wistful consciousness of earth, | |
| Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love, | 40 |
| Simplicities of mirth, | |
| Must follow them above | |
| With touches of vague homesickness that pass | |
| Like shadows of swift birds across the grass. | |
| Beneath some foreign arch of sky, | 45 |
| How many a time the rover | |
| You or I, | |
| For life oft sundered look from look, | |
| And voice from voice, the transient dearth | |
| Schooling my soul to brook | 50 |
| This distance that no messages may span, | |
| Would chance | |
| Upon our wilding by a lonely well, | |
| Or drowsy watermill, | |
| Or swaying to the chime of convent bell, | 55 |
| Or where the nightingales of old romance | |
| With tragical contraltos fill | |
| Dim solitudes of infinite desire; | |
| And once I joyed to meet | |
| Our peasant gadabout | 60 |
| A trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat, | |
| Twinkling a saucy eye | |
| As potentates paced by. | |
| |
| Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing flame | |
| From friendship’s altar fire! | 65 |
| How proudly we would pluck and tame | |
| The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay! | |
| How swiftly they were sent | |
| Far, far away | |
| On journeys wide, | 70 |
| By sea and continent, | |
| Green miles and blue leagues over, | |
| From each of us to each, | |
| That so our hearts might reach, | |
| And touch within the yellow clover, | 75 |
| Love’s letter to be glad about | |
| Like sunshine when it came! | |
| |
| My sorrow asks no healing; it is love; | |
| Let love then make me brave | |
| To bear the keen hurts of | 80 |
| This careless summertide, | |
| Ay, of our own poor flower, | |
| Changed with our fatal hour, | |
| For all its sunshine vanished when you died; | |
| Only white clover blossoms on your grave. | 85 |
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