ROUNDELS

These songs I sing to you, who song inspire. Would I a message new might find and bring! Or touch with a live spark of heavenly fire These songs I sing! Take them, for they are doves with fluttering wing,— They try to reach your window: lift them higher— Up to your heart—there warm and nestling They shall find home, and life! If love aspire Shall it not speak? To voice a holy thing, To voice the heart’s deep need—the soul’s desire These songs I sing.

You came to me when I had turned and said:— “This, in my darkened life can never be, My ways are in the stumbler’s paths instead!” You came to me High and unprejudiced and spirit free. Wearing God’s seal upon your pure forehead, Dearest, you bent from your bright way to see My flickering torch: your own, live-flashing, red Rekindled the faint flame. Thus holily, A radiance, a light when light had fled, You came to me.

Kind and Dear you are, and Brave and Strong. Life has taught you worth of smile and tear; Still your spirit’s tenor flows along Kind and Dear. Turn to me, on whom for many a year Fate has wrought its work of bitter wrong; (Scarce my veilèd vision sees you clear!) On your brow is Peace, to you belong Life’s best gifts, oh lend me Faith and Cheer! Show me Truth and Beauty, teach my song, Kind and Dear!

Go, unsaid thought, wordless and songless both! With fluttering pinions, still unseen, unsought, Circle the spirit’s white flame like a moth— Go—unsaid thought! Go to the one by whom my soul is taught; Go—wing your joyous journey, nothing loth Like sunbeams in the hearts of lilies caught, Like perfume that eludes, yet lingereth;— Until your subtle mission’s fully wrought— To charm, as a dear dream’s pale image doth,— Go—unsaid thought!

Friend, unto thee I bend my constant thought; Its current running as a stream to sea, From hidden sources of my being brought, Friend, unto thee. If the wise wonders of the world could be Found by a spell, sure my quick love had sought Each potent and elusive mystery. Into an amulet together wrought To charm thee! With this full confession free— I loose my doves to-day, their ways are taught, Friend, unto thee!

Friend—my restless spirit never knew What good gifts the heavens kept late to send Till the dear day dawned that brought me—you, Friend! Lacking love like this, too many wend Graveward. Highest heaven holds few Joys like this, with cruel pain to blend. I who know not Peace may feel its dew; I who have no prayers may kneel and bend In this gentle presence;—dear and new Friend!

Last night I heard in the wood green and still, The sweetest music sung by any bird. I never knew the soul of song, until Last night I heard. Pure as life’s morning, warm as love first stirred, Fresh it outpoured our close attent to fill. Dearest, you were beside me, and your word Did through the heavenly harmonies distil The spirit’s joy: and grosser sense was blurred. I never knew the soul of Love, until— Last night I heard!

Good night,—Love rules the world,—Sleep you!— There is no evil in Love’s sight. See how heaven’s lamps swing in the blue,— Good night! Oh what avails the futile flight Of thought to bless the long dark through? Deep is the darkness, and, despite Of Love, our care is frail to do For those we love: but all is right, God’s is the darkness; friend, to you— Good night!

Dearest ... for thee I make my Christmas song! A song of holly and of fragrant tree, Of festivals, that sweep their happy throng, Dearest, for thee! Look ... how the folding snow is on the lea; See the fine hoar frost lie the hedge along And the white holy stars shine mistily. A Christmas gift held high, though winds are strong, A warm and glowing gift, though ice may be, Comes star-blest, Christ-blest, over pain and wrong, Dearest, for thee!

I find in thee fields, valleys, plains, and hills. Deep tender depths, a forest and a sea. All that the warm wide Earth with beauty fills I find in thee. Each a small part of God’s fair world are we, Each one to a quick pulse of nature thrills Or mirrors in his soul a mystery. All sweetness that the summer wind distils, And all of winter beauty that may be, All that wakes ecstasy, or calms, or stills, I find in thee!

Sea and sand and here our small home’s place is Where the low suns flush the warm wide land Golden flooding, till the whole world’s face is Sea and Sand. Far beyond our horizons, expand Happy bays—they say: but the wave’s race is Toward our love-bound island, tempest-banned. Here for you and me the season’s grace is, Here the heart’s response, the touch of hand Make love’s universe, and Heaven’s embrace is Sea and Sand.

Sand and sea, and white gull’s fluttering feather Down upon the beach, the salt pool’s fee. Birds have left to storm and the wind’s tether Sand and Sea. Warm and bright those southern ports may be, Here, the ribald winter rules the weather Crying in the bending, tossing tree: We are two—sweetheart—and care not whether Summer reign, or Winter—so that we Live and love, as close as kiss together Sand and Sea.

I love you so that I would rather have Your happiness than any joy below. I would give up my soul your soul to save, I love you so! If round your island like sea should flow The dearest gifts men ever sought or gave— My heart’s desire should on the first crest glow! My love counts pain and death small things to brave; My love shall find the joy the immortals know; And triumph o’er the future—and the grave,— I love you so!

Never again, Dearest, oh never more! Not in the spring-time’s swift enchanted reign, Shall hope to hope, shall love to love implore, Never again! Not in the summer—nor when autumn’s wane Blows the dry leaves along earth’s windy floor, Nor in the winter: that strange joy and pain No seasons’ circle ever can restore. The roses of to-day no tears shall stain,— They’re thornless! You shall see the rose you wore Never again!

Where are you, Dear, now that the winter white Has nearly run its course? Spring will be here And birds shall sing as home they wing their flight, “Where are you, Dear?” Thus I have sung and waited thro’ the year, Saying at morning: “You will come with night?” And in the night: “With the dawn kind and clear, “You will pass by!” My little dwelling bright Has its soft curtains drawn; I wait the cheer Your presence brings by day and candle-light; “Where are you, Dear?”

Gone!... And steal the shadows grey Where our window shone Late with lights; too soon are they Gone. All that Heaven won When it took you, love, away My heaven’s built upon:— “Joy of life—Come back a day!” But the path leads on Through the night.... Grief wakes to say “Gone!”

By candle-light when every fine flame played About your bed so long and cold and white,— I sat and kept my watch, and wept and prayed By candle-light. Till memories a holy, holy flight Came back from our far childhood’s years, and stayed Touching us with their wings. And to thy bright High presence, “I will be all days” (I said) “A torch to hold thy spirit’s flame aright.” This was the tender promise that I made By candle-light.

What are my ways now that my Love is dead? As candles round a bier stand future days. Must I then read in annals of years fled What are my ways? On, the Time-reaping shining sickle sways; I watch in fog and rain with bended head; And for no flower swathe the cold blade stays. If memory were a solace, hearts that bled Were healed long since!... Now the quick tear betrays I may not with my past be comforted: What are my ways?

You came to me in visions of the night, Your pale brow bound by a bright ring of flame; High, unapproachable, and dazzling white, You came. I rose and called you by your dearest name;— “Tell me,” I said, “how go the hours’ flight In that far land? Do men strive there for Fame And Love?” Then I lost sense and sight: You bent to me,—your kisses were the same As when, long since, to be my life’s delight You came.

Dark the day when love is gone— When the vital spark Dies, and leaves the soul of one Dark. April for the birds shall hark. March’s wildness sown, June with crimson bloom shall mark. What has hope to build upon Cold and stiff and stark? All the future stretches on Dark.