REMINISCENCE

I

So you would leave me, little Rose?

Dear child, with all your mother’s ways;

That look she had in girlish days,

The look that with your beauty grows.

II

Oft when you bring her to my mind,

Before my heart has time for pain,

In you she seems to live again,

As though no sorrow were behind.

III

And when that happy, trustful gaze

Meets him you love, yet more I see

Your mother as she looked at me:

It is her own dear, watchful face.

102IV

And when he takes your hand in his,

There flits across your lips and eyes

Her own pleased smile of half surprise:

It seems not like departed bliss.

V

Ah! what a heart-locked memory stirs—

I look, ’tis she, and you are gone!

Yes, though so many springs have flown,

Her peace remains, our love is hers.

VI

She sees your arms my neck enclose;

She sees your lips upon my brow.

No truer hour of love than now

Awaits your heart, my happy Rose!

VII

How they come back those days of old!

And now that ’tis your wedding-eve,

Now that for other scenes you leave,

One happy legend shall be told,—

103VIII

Told in this home, this sunny vale

That for long years has been our own,

Sacred in days that long have gone

To many another lover’s tale.

IX

It was an hour like this, the sun

Was sinking, yet had far to go:

The richness of his overflow

Down river, wood, and pasture shone.

X

Two lovers in this porch had met

Where often they had met in play:

’Twas on this memorable day—

As though that sun had never set.

XI

These grey-mossed tiles still ’neath it scorch;

The glare and shade still side by side

Aslant the mullioned casements glide

From yon old gable to the porch.

104XII

A youth has hurried from these walls—

He stops, as in a day-dream stands:

His shadow with fast-folded hands

As from yon stone sun-dial falls.

XIII

His eyes are full of one loved face

Sunk pallid in her fingers cleft;

The long-loved one who just had left

In timid haste his wild embrace.

XIV

The love that with her childhood grew

Had still to her unruffled clung;

Engaging, playful, ever young,—

And without change was ever new.

XV

Not its glad pastimes she disowns;

He drew her to a higher love;

But while the pale emotion strove

She fled from his impassioned tones.

105XVI

Transparent isles of rushes bind

The rivers light with bars of green

That catch the water’s blue between,

To where it darkens in the wind.

XVII

There lies his boat, and now the sun,

Still going westward with the stream,

Appears to tow him on his dream

As they advance in unison.

XVIII

Along the white and yellow meads,

Which buttercup and daisy share,

The crowding cattle idly stare

As he winds through the matted reeds.

XIX

But her loved image fills his mind,

And, ever gazing at him, screens

His eyes from those long-happy scenes,

As he drifts by them, nature-blind.

106XX

The white-flowered weed whose tresses float,

Combed by the stream and water-waved,

Seems her bright hair in crystal laved,

Struggling to overtake his boat.

XXI

His sculls drip o’er the glossy wash:

The ripple of the mellow tide

He scarce feels o’er their edges glide;

He lists not for the thrilling plash,

XXII

But thinks, when last the tide he clove,

How bank-side elms before him flew,

And quiet lay the distant view

Of woodland hill where dwelt his love.

XXIII

His memory holds it as the stream

Holds all the shining summer round:

The sky, the woods, the very sound

Of cuckoos chanting in a dream.

107XXIV

And how she loved the grey old bridge!

Those arches mirrored deep below,

That meet the pillars row to row,

Quivering from their ruffled ridge—

XXV

Three tunnels open to the skies!

The tasselled mosses as they float,

Now still, now heaving with the boat

That passes while the vision flies.

XXVI

As melt, with all the watery heaven,

Those arches hanging o’er a sky—

So in the quiet of a sigh

The yearnings of his soul seemed riven.

XXVII

The far-off boom of yonder weir

Now rushes down the narrowed day:

Like sirens battling with the spray,

Once came its music to her ear.

108XXVIII

The sun now trembles like a ball

Heaven-forged and glittering in its blast;

A pale green halo round him cast—

Half quenched behind the waterfall.

XXIX

White streaks are creeping through the shade;

The moon climbs up the poplar trees:

But a loved form of light he sees,

As if her spirit walked the glade.

XXX

Well might it be, as since hath seemed,—

So holy are the vanished years.

But then her cheeks were under tears:

It was on them the moonlight gleamed.

XXXI

Her sobbings at his bosom fall;

Fonder than words can tell, they say

Her heart was his, half love, half play,

But now all love she gives it all.

109XXXII

’Twas she, your mother! While she hung

Her head, and hid her tears, and crept

To me, as one who, erring, wept;

Wept more the closer that she clung;

XXXIII

She seemed an infant in my arms—

Kissed me as would a child bereaved:

And then, as ’twere for joy, she grieved—

Her heart released from its alarms.

XXXIV

God bless you, Rose! That loving face—

Could she but see it! Well I knew

Her thoughts when last she looked at you,

Who now have grown up in her place.

XXXV

Ah, leave me, Rose! these memories stir

Depths that you may not dream of, child!

These tears till now your love has wiled;

Leave me, that I may think of her.

110