The Dove

If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn,
Shouldst call along the curving sphere, "Remain,
Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!"
With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain; --
Shouldst thou, O Spring! a-cower in coverts dark,
'Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea,
And move the mighty woods through mailed bark
Till mortal heart-break throbbed in every tree; --
Or (grievous `if' that may be `yea' o'er-soon!),
If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet,
Shouldst knock Death's door with mellow shocks of tune,
Sad inquiry to make -- `When may we meet?'
Nay, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart!
Should chant grave unisons of grief and love;
Ye could not mourn with more melodious art
Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove.
____
Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, 1877.
To ----, with a Rose.
I asked my heart to say
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay
Upon my Lady's natal day.
Then said my heart to me:
`Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee
What fits thy Love most lovingly.'
This gift that learning shows;
For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,
I send a rose unto a Rose.
____
Philadelphia, 1876.