Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

VIII. Wedded Love

The Poet’s Bridal-Day Song

Allan Cunningham (1784–1842)

O, MY love ’s like the steadfast sun,

Or streams that deepen as they run;

Nor hoary hairs, nor forty years,

Nor moments between sighs and tears,

Nor nights of thought, nor days of pain,

Nor dreams of glory dreamed in vain,

Nor mirth, nor sweetest song that flows

To sober joys and soften woes,

Can make my heart or fancy flee,

One moment, my sweet wife, from thee.

Even while I muse, I see thee sit

In maiden bloom and matron wit;

Fair, gentle as when first I sued,

Ye seem, but of sedater mood;

Yet my heart leaps as fond for thee

As when, beneath Arbigland tree,

We stayed and wooed, and thought the moon

Set on the sea an hour too soon;

Or lingered mid the falling dew,

When looks were fond and words were few.

Though I see smiling at thy feet

Five sons and ae fair daughter sweet,

And time, and care, and birthtime woes

Have dimmed thine eye and touched thy rose,

To thee, and thoughts of thee, belong

Whate’er charms me in tale or song.

When words descend like dews, unsought,

With gleams of deep, enthusiast thought,

And Fancy in her heaven flies free,

They come, my love, they come from thee.

O, when more thought we gave, of old,

To silver than some give to gold,

’T was sweet to sit and ponder o’er

How we should deck our humble bower;

’T was sweet to pull, in hope, with thee,

The golden fruit of fortune’s tree;

And sweeter still to choose and twine

A garland for that brow of thine,—

A song-wreath which may grace my Jean,

While rivers flow, and woods grow green.

At times there come, as come there ought,

Grave moments of sedater thought,

When Fortune frowns, nor lends our night

One gleam of her inconstant light;

And Hope, that decks the peasant’s bower,

Shines like a rainbow through the shower;

O, then I see, while seated nigh,

A mother’s heart shine in thine eye,

And proud resolve and purpose meek,

Speak of thee more than words can speak.

I think this wedded wife of mine

The best of all that ’s not divine.