Her Voice

The wild bee reels from bough to bough

      With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,

Now in a lily-cup, and now

      Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,

                        In his wandering;

Sit closer love: it was here I trow

                        I made that vow,

Swore that two lives should be like one

      As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,

As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—

      It shall be, I said, for eternity

                        'Twixt you and me!

Dear friend, those times are over and done,

                        Love's web is spun.

Look upward where the poplar trees

      Sway and sway in the summer air,

Here in the valley never a breeze

      Scatters the thistledown, but there

                        Great winds blow fair

From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,

                        And the wave-lashed leas.

Look upward where the white gull screams,

      What does it see that we do not see?

Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams

      On some outward voyaging argosy,—

                        Ah! can it be

We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!

                        How sad it seems.

Sweet, there is nothing left to say

      But this, that love is never lost,

Keen winter stabs the breasts of May

      Whose crimson roses burst his frost,

                        Ships tempest-tossed

Will find a harbour in some bay,

                        And so we may.

And there is nothing left to do

      But to kiss once again, and part,

Nay, there is nothing we should rue,

      I have my beauty,—you your Art,

                        Nay, do not start,

One world was not enough for two

                        Like me and you.