THE TRYST.
Reading edition
SWEET as the change from pleasant thoughts to sleep The silver gloaming melted into gloom, Then came the evening silence rich and deep, With mingled breaths of dew-released perfume; The few first stars shone in the azure pale, Soft as a young nun’s glances through her veil. Was it for darkness that thou waited, sweet? Ah, though thy face was dusk in night’s eclipse, Thy heart betrayed thee by its quickened beat! I needed not the light to find thy lips, Nor in the balmy hush of even-time, To hear one word more sweet than any rhyme. Charles Lotin Hildreth.
BY ONE RAPT DAY.
BY one rapt day Love doth his harvest mete, And from dream wings in memory’s light caressed Fans calms of joy into my burning breast. It is that day when Love bowed at thy feet, And all the noontide in a rush of heat Rippled with whispers of thy love confessed; And larks afar sank down with sobs of rest, Finding their carol heights in thee complete. The day when, midst the well-known Sussex wood, Stream music kissed the spirit of the wold And sang the sun to rest, mingling its gold With heather-bell and oak, and, rapt in moods Of melody and shy sweet interludes, Held our soul’s transport still with joys untold. A. Ernest Hinshelwood.