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Summer
The Flowing Tide. THE SLOW green wave comes curling from the bay | |
| And leaps in spray along the sunny marge, | |
| And steals a little more and more away, | |
| And drowns the dulse, and lifts the stranded barge. | |
| Leave me, strong tide, my smooth and yellow shore; | 5 |
| But the clear waters deepen more and more: | |
| Leave me my pathway of the sands, strong tide; | |
| Yet are the waves more fair than all they hide. | |
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The Heart that lacks Room. I love him, and I love him, and I love: | |
| Oh heart, my love goes welling o’er the brim. | 10 |
| He makes my light more than the sun above, | |
| And what am I save what I am to him? | |
| All will, all hope I have, to him belong; | |
| Oh heart, thou art too small for love so strong: | |
| Oh heart, grow large, grow deeper for his sake; | 15 |
| Oh love him better, heart, or thou wilt break! | |
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The Lovers. And we are lovers, lovers he and I: | |
| Oh sweet dear name that angels envy us; | |
| Lovers for now, lovers for by and by, | |
| And God to hear us call each other thus. | 20 |
| Flow softly, river of our life, and fair; | |
| We float together to the otherwhere: | |
| Storm, river of our life, if storm must be, | |
| We brunt thy tide together to that sea. | |
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Autumn
We Two. The road slopes on that leads us to the last, | 25 |
| And we two tread it softly, side by side; | |
| ’Tis a blithe count the milestones we have passed, | |
| Step fitting step, and each of us for guide. | |
| My love, and I thy love, our road is fair, | |
| And fairest most because the other’s there: | 30 |
| Our road is fair, adown the harvest hill, | |
| But fairest that we two are we two still. | |
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We Two. We two, we two! the children’s smiles are dear— | |
| Thank God how dear the bonny children’s smiles!— | |
| But ’tis we two among our own ones here, | 35 |
| We two along life’s way through all the whiles. | |
| To think if we had passed each other by; | |
| And he not he apart, and I not I! | |
| And oh to think if we had never known; | |
| And I not I and he not he alone! | 40 |
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Winter
The Daughter. Go forth, my darling, in the wreath and veil; | |
| My hand shall place them for thee; so goodbye. | |
| Thou hast Love’s rose, and tend it without fail; | |
| It withers, dear, if lovers let it lie. | |
| Go, my own singing bird, and be his now; | 45 |
| And I am more than half as glad as thou. | |
| Ah me! the singing birds that were our own | |
| Fly forth and mate: and ’tis long life alone. | |
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