The evening hours, the birds, the flowers, Remind me of her teachings sweet. My thoughtlessness hath drank up tears; Of a few swift and checkered years; I have been out at eventide Beneath a moonlight sky of spring, When earth was garnished like a bride, And night had on her silver wing; When bursting leaves, and diamond grass, And waters leaping to the light, And all that make the pulses pass With wilder sweetness, thronged the night; When all was beauty; then have I, With friends on whom my love is flung Like myrrh on winds of Araby, Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung; My mother's voice came on the air I've poured out low and fervent prayer To rise in heaven, like stars at night, A MOTHER'S LOVE. THERE is still within this world A brilliant, fadeless light, In the gray East; when birds were waking, Which, like a star, shines through the clouds With a low murmur in the trees, And melody by fits was breaking Upon the whisper of the breeze; And this when I was forth, perchance, As a worn reveler from the dance; And when the sun sprang gloriously And freely up, and hill and river Were catching upon wave and tree The arrows from his subtle quiver: I say a voice has thrilled me then, Heard on the still and rushing light, Or, creeping from the lonely glen Like words from the departing night, Hath stricken me; and I have pressed On the wet grass my fevered brow, And pouring forth the earliest, Of sorrow's darkest night Which hovers round our pathway here, It is the light reflected from There is a boon-a blessed boon Unto us mortals given, Which gives us here a foretaste of And clouds grow dark above, It lingers round us to the last; 'Tis true that oft our footsteps roam, And straight my fancy to its trembling Your smile would make a summer of the glow Forms a white pathway of these falling flakes, The snow-flakes tap against your window pane; You heed them not. Ah, love! you cannot know That I have crossed to you this winter night Upon a frail, white bridge of falling snow! I stand outside-the night is dark and cold; Within your room, are warmth and summer glow, night, Though white with misty flakes of falling snow. Love, it is cold as death out here alone. Look up but once, I pray you, ere I go! Without one smile to light the lonely way I cannot cross again this bridge of snow. The light has vanished in the cold and gloom; Your face is hidden. Now, alas, I know Only my heart's deep longing formed the bridge Between us and the falling snow. ANONYMOUs. |