| |
| FOLD your arms around me, Sweet, | |
| As against your heart my heart doth beat. | |
| |
| Kiss me, Love, till it fade, the fright | |
| Of the dreadful dream I dreamt last night. | |
| |
| Oh, thank God, it is you, it is you, | 5 |
| My own love, fair and strong and true. | |
| |
| We two are the same that, yesterday, | |
| Played in the light and tost the hay. | |
| |
| My hair you stroke, O dearest one, | |
| Is alive with youth and bright with the sun. | 10 |
| |
| Tell me again, Love, how I seem | |
| ‘The prettiest queen of curds and cream.’ | |
| |
| Fold me close and kiss me again; | |
| Kiss off the shadow of last night’s pain. | |
| |
| I dreamt last night, as I lay in bed, | 15 |
| That I was old and that you were dead. | |
| |
| I knew you had died long time ago, | |
| And I well recalled the moan and woe. | |
| |
| You had died in your beautiful youth, my sweet; | |
| You had gone to rest with untired feet; | 20 |
| |
| And I had prayed to come to you, | |
| To lay me down and slumber too. | |
| |
| But it might not be, and the days went on, | |
| And I was all alone, alone. | |
| |
| The women came so neighbourly, | 25 |
| And kissed my face and wept with me; | |
| |
| And the men stood still to see me pass, | |
| And smiled grave smiles, and said, ‘Poor lass!’ | |
| |
| Sometimes I seemed to hear your feet, | |
| And my grief-numbed heart would wildly beat; | 30 |
| |
| And I stopt and named my darling’s name— | |
| But never a word of answer came. | |
| |
| The men and women ceased at last | |
| To pity pain that was of the past; | |
| |
| For pain is common, and grief, and loss; | 35 |
| And many come home by Weeping Cross. | |
| |
| Why do I tell you this, my dear? | |
| Sorrow is gone now you are here. | |
| |
| You and I, we sit in the light, | |
| And fled is the horror of yesternight. | 40 |
| |
| The time went on, and I saw one day | |
| My body was bent and my hair was gray. | |
| |
| But the boys and girls a-whispering | |
| Sweet tales in the sweet light of the spring, | |
| |
| Never paused in the tales they told | 45 |
| To say, ‘He is dead and she is old.’ | |
| |
| There’s a place in the churchyard where, I thought, | |
| Long since my lover had been brought; | |
| |
| It had sunk with years from a high green mound | |
| To a level no stranger would have found; | 50 |
| |
| But I—I always knew the spot; | |
| How could I miss it, know it not? | |
| |
| Darling, darling, draw me near, | |
| For I cannot shake off the dread and fear. | |
| |
| Hold me so close I scarce can breathe; | 55 |
| And kiss me, for, lo, above, beneath, | |
| |
| The blue sky fades, and the green grass dries, | |
| And the sunshine goes from my lips and eyes. | |
| |
| O God—that dream—it has not fled— | |
| One of us old, and one of us dead! | 60 |
| |
