The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

MANY a time and oft,
In the July weather,
When the breeze was soft
And the pleasant land
Purple with the heather,
Went we hand in hand,
Love and I together.

Round our happy feet
Twinkled out the roses,
Roses red and sweet,
Ruddy as the sky
When the dawn uncloses,
White as chastity,
Yellow as primroses.

Were the roses red,
Lo! my love was brighter.
Did the moonlight shed
Lilies on the ground,
Lo! my love was whiter
And her footsteps' sound
Than the breeze was lighter.

God! how glad we were!
All the birds were jealous.
Hovering in the air,
All the larks and linnets,
All the white-breast swallows,
Envied all our minutes
More than they could tell us.

232

Thrushes knew no song
Like thy golden singing:
In the woodbirds' throng
There was no such sweetness
As thy voice's ringing
And thy footsteps' fleetness
O'er the heather springing.

Heavens! how we kissed!
Flowers to one another
Bending through the mist
Of the summer-calm,
Kissing each his brother,
With their breath of balm,
Filled not one the other

With such golden bliss,
With such tender glory
Prisoned in a kiss;
All the sweet Spring-gladness,
All the summer-story
And the autumn-sadness,
When the sky is hoary.

Through the harebells blue
Went the bees a-humming,
Singing of the dew,
Of the summer ceased
And the harvest coming
And the honey-feast
In the winter-gloaming.

Flower-dew, like the bee,
From thy lips so bonny,
'Gainst the flower-time flee,
Stole I in Love's name,
While July was sunny,
That, when winter came,
I too might have honey.

233

Roses red and white
In my breast I treasured,
Whilst the sky was bright
And the fragrant ways
With the flowers were measured,
That in autumn's days
I might be rose-pleasured.

On my happy breast
Didst thou weep for gladness;
And thy tears, out-prest,
Falling on the roses,
Filled them with strange sadness,
Sweet as birdsong-closes,
In the new May-madness.

Then I learnt the song
That thy lips did utter;
Caught each jewelled throng,
Every glad clear trill,
Every low sweet mutter,
At thy voice's will
That did fly and flutter;

Treasured every note
In my heart's recesses,
Learnt them all by rote,
All the golden falls,
All the silver stresses,
All the joy that thralls,
All the love that blesses;

Stored them dearly up
In the hidden places,
In the white closed cup
Of my flower-bell fancies;
That, when white earth's face is
And the old romances
Gone with summer's graces,

234

When my soul should grope
In the earth-mists sordid,
Far from love and hope,
I might turn for balm
To the music hoarded
And in its sweet psalm
Hope and be rewarded.

So the summer fled
And the autumn mellowed
All the leaves to red,
All the corn to gold;
And the winter followed,
With its silent cold
And its snows wind-hollowed.

Then I went alone;
For light Love had left me,
When the birds had flown
And the flowers were dead:
Winter had bereft me
Of the roses red
And the bliss Love weft me.

Then I said, “Have heart!
Thou hast yet thy treasure.
Though light Love depart,
Thou canst summon up
All the summer leisure
From its silver cup,
All the bygone pleasure.”

So I searched my heart
For the hoarded sweetness,
Honey set apart
'Gainst the days of sadness;
For the songs whose fleetness
Gave the summer gladness,
Gave my bliss completeness.

235

Lo! the songs were wails,
Like the wind that surges
Through the moaning sails.
Lo! the sweets were gall.
Lo! the thoughts were scourges,
Bitter honey all;
And the pæans dirges.

Then from out my breast
Did I take the roses,
Roses tear-caressed,
Roses red and white,
That in the reposes
Of the noon-delight
I had plucked for posies.

Lo! the flowers were dead,
By the frost invaded;
But the tears she shed
Had, within the fronds
Of the petals shaded,
Grown to diamonds,
Lights that never faded.

So Love's gladness flees
And its sweets wax bitter;
But the memories
Of its hours of sorrow,
Holier and fitter,
On the winter morrow,
Turn to gems and glitter.