A NEW-YEAR'S BURDEN. ALONG the grass sweet airs are blown Of all the songs that we have known Not that, my love, ah no !— Not this, my love? why, so !— Yet both were ours, but hours will come and go. The grove is all a pale frail mist, The new year sucks the sun. Of all the kisses that we kissed Now which shall be the one? Not that, my love, ah no !— Not this, my love?-heigh-ho For all the sweets that all the winds can blow! The branches cross above our eyes, The skies are in a net: And what's the thing beneath the skies We two would most forget? Not birth, my love, no, no,— Not death, my love, no, no, The love once ours, but ours long hours ago. EVEN SO. So it is, my dear. All such things touch secret strings For heavy hearts to hear. So it is, my dear. Very like indeed: Sea and sky, afar, on high, Sand and strewn seaweed,— Very like indeed. But the sea stands spread As one wall with the flat skies, Where the lean black craft like flies Seem well-nigh stagnated, Soon to drop off dead. Seemed it so to us When I was thine and thou wast mine, And all these things were thus, But all our world in us? Could we be so now? Not if all beneath heaven's pall Lay dead but I and thou, THE WOODSPURGE. THE wind flapped loose, the wind was still, I had walked on at the wind's will,— Between my knees my forehead was,— My eyes, wide open, had the run The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one. From perfect grief there need not be Wisdom or even memory: One thing then learnt remains to me,— The woodspurge has a cup of three. THE HONEYSUCKLE. I PLUCKED a honeysuckle where The hedge on high is quick with thorn, And climbing for the prize, was torn, And fouled my feet in quag-water; And by the thorns and by the wind The blossom that I took was thinn'd, And yet I found it sweet and fair. Thence to a richer growth I came, Where, nursed in mellow intercourse, The honeysuckles sprang by scores, Not harried like my single stem, All virgin lamps of scent and dew. So from my hand that first I threw, Yet plucked not any more of them. A YOUNG FIR-WOOD. THESE little firs to-day are things From many winters many springs Shall cherish them in strength and sap, Till they be marked upon the map, A wood for the wind's wanderings. All seed is in the sower's hands: And what at first was trained to spread Its shelter for some single head,— Yea, even such fellowship of wands,May hide the sunset, and the shade Of its great multitude be laid Upon the earth and elder sands, |