Divided

Broad and white, and polished as silver,

On she goes under fruit-laden trees: Sunk in leafage cooeth the culver,

And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties.

Glitters the dew, and shines the river,
Up comes the lily and dries her bell;
But two are walking apart forever,

And wave their hands for a mute farewell.

VII

A braver swell, a swifter sliding;

The river hasteth, her banks recede. Wing-like sails on her bosom gliding

Bear down the lily, and drown the reed.

Stately prows are rising and bowing
(Shouts of mariners winnow the air),
And level sands for banks endowing

The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair.

While, O my heart! as white sails shiver,

And clouds are passing, and banks stretch wide,
How hard to follow, with lips that quiver,
That moving speck on the far-off side.

Farther, farther; I see it, know it

My eyes brim over, it melts away: Only my heart to my heart shall show it As I walk desolate day by day.

VIII

And yet I know past all doubting, truly,—
A knowledge greater than grief can dim,—
I know, as he loved, he will love me duly,--
Yea, better, e'en better than I love him.

And as I walk by the vast calm river,

The awful river so dread to see,

I say, "Thy breadth and thy depth forever

951

Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me." Jean Ingelow [1820-1897]

MY PLAYMATE

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home,

And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine:
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round

Of uneventful years;

Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.

There haply with her jeweled hands
She smooths her silken gown,—
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.

My Playmate

The wild grapes wait us by the brook,

The brown nuts on the hill,

And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,-
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice:
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?

What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,-
That other laps with nuts are filled,
And other hands with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern

A sweeter memory blow;

And there in spring the veeries sing

The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,--
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!

953

John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892]

A FAREWELL

WITH all my will, but much against my heart,

We two now part.

My Very Dear,

Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.

It needs no art,

With faint, averted feet

And many a tear,

In our opposed paths to persevere.

Go thou to East, I West.

We will not say

There's any hope, it is so far away.

But, O, my Best,

When the one darling of our widowhead,

The nursling Grief

Is dead,

And no dews blur our eyes

To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,

Perchance we may,

Where now this night is day,

And even through faith of still averted feet,

Making full circle of our banishment,

Amazèd meet;

The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
Seasoning the termless feast of our content

With tears of recognition never dry.

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

DEPARTURE

It was not like your great and gracious ways!

Do you, that have naught other to lament,

Never, my Love, repent

Of how, that July afternoon,

You went,

With sudden, unintelligible phrase,

And frightened eye,

Upon your journey of so many days

Absent, Yet Present

Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?

I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
And so we sate, within the low sun's rays,

You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.

Well, it was well

To hear you such things speak,

And I could tell

What made your eyes a glowing gloom of love,
As a warm South-wind sombers a March grove.

And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash

To let the laughter flash,

Whilst I drew near,

Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.

But all at once to leave me at the last,

More at the wonder than the loss aghast,

With huddled, unintelligible phrase,

And frightened eye,

And go your journey of all days

With not one kiss, or a good-bye,

955

And the only loveless look the look with which you passed:

'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

ABSENT, YET PRESENT

As the flight of a river

That flows to the sea,

My soul rushes ever

In tumult to thee.

A twofold existence

I am where thou art;
My heart in the distance
Beats close to thy heart.