As a Tale that is Told

In flowers at morn a girl and boy,
While o'er them Spring's young leaflets toy,
Sleep locked in arms of mutual joy.

They babbled near the babbling brook,
While ringdoves coo'd from greenest nook
Till sleep soft shadows o'er them shook.

At hand shy rabbits nibbling sit,
And close the speckled thrush hath lit,
While o'er their limbs gemmed insects flit.

Where vivid-raptured foliage gloats
In swim of soaring day that floats
How tender ! yon forget-me-nots

Are dimmed, it seems, with mist-like trail :
Some chilling Presence makes to pale
The woodland growth where'er it sail !

Where each on each the children lean
Some fingers pitiless unseen
Their twining hands apart would wean.

It creeps the loving sleepers o'er ;
They stir, they wake ; nor as of yore
In eyes of each to dote and pore.

They look abroad to earth and sky,
Till other human forms are nigh ;
Then each to one of these will fly.

So close they fold in alien arms,
The farewell scarce their accent warms.
They pass so rapt in alien charms !

Note such a new-made fondest pair.
And list how deep they both can swear
That nought shall part them foul or fair !

But look, upon the shadowed mound
One sinks and sinks in deadly swound ;
He chafes her, kneeling on the ground.

With anguish in his widened eye,
" She shall not — he'll not let her — die ! "
She cannot hear his frenzied cry.

Again the boy is laid in sleep.
Nigh where his chosen slumbers deep
For evermore — and near him creep

Those mist-like trailing garments chill ;
Can Lethe dews from them distil.
To cool the forehead where they feel ?

He wakes with half the trouble flown ;
Soon one who views him thus alone
Consoling arms hath round him thrown.

Hail ! Time's mysterious healing art,
Who soothes the deadly-rankling smart
And pieces many a broken heart !

Each counts to find one curve of all
Full answering his proper call.
Yet echoing with sublimer fall.

But in long years' close intercourse.
Ignoble chance will blow perforce
Trim coverings from hidden sores.

And lo ! disgust — they meet so cold,
Scarce their bewildered memories hold
Remembrance of the straining fold !

While hark ! Time's ghostly laughter rings-
" To what I snatch man frantic clings,
Yet o'er his new toy laughs and sings,

And boasts, ' 'Tis wise and well to bow,
The past inevitable now ;
True beats my heart, though smooth my brow.'
XXII
Poor fool, it flatters thee to prate ;
In May the bird will find new mate :
Disdain not thou thy kindred's fate."

XXIII
And yet to me 'tis like disgrace
That one we think our soul's embrace
Should vanish thence and leave no trace.

XXIV
What then is human love ? Our best,
Our strong abiding power confest ;
Yet that seems mortal like the rest !

Nay ! Time, we are not wholly thine ;
The blind-born man will not repine,
But he who once knew Summer-shine.

The brute more meek thy shackle wears j\Ian chafes against the prison bars,
His pale face yearning to the stars ! . . .

XXVII
Then sudden through the woodland rose
A wail of wind uproarious ;
The huddling foliage pales and bows.

XXVIII
For choked with surging wrath, disdain,
That Phantom strove to fashion plain
The crushing sound, " In vain, in vain ! '
XXIX
So, when beneath some belfry-bell.s
One musing hears the organ swells,
A people's prayer the pauses fills.

But oft the wind's harsh-clamouring gust
Drowns all, as if the dead men's dust
Down those appealing mouths were thrust !

XXXI
Nay, if with doled power yet weak.
Even lower things will heavenward break.
Shall we whose conscious spirits seek

XXXII
With mightier stress a myriad-fold
To burst the fretting dykes that hold
In parent ocean to be rolled,

XXXIII
Shall we alone all vainly strive
Ourselves may more supremely live,
That nobler love in us may thrive ?

XXXIV
Nay then, aver yon feeble rills
May wear their slow course down the hills.
But when with these the torrent fills,

XXXV
The torrent shall not surge away.
Leap, whelming all the rocks with spray,
To still its longing in the sea !