The poems of Trumbull Stickney

Clouds thro' the heaven flit
Aprilward.
There 's the bud of a violet
On the sward.
Branch and breeze sympathize
Ere they play,—
I know that it 's Spring to-day
By your eyes.

How shall I hold you fast
Now you are here?
A tremor, and you have passed.
And this year
Only of all is ours
Only is mine!—
I see in your blue eyes shine
All the year's flowers.

Hereafter I'll call you Spring,
Little girl!
And christen each clustering
Delicate curl
Some lovely meadow's name
In the South,
Where they say that music and youth
Stay the same.

I held these tulips first, before
Bringing you them.
I passed the love I bear you o'er
Flower and stem.
And I would leave them at your door,—

If at your heart's door they might stand!
Keeping awhile
The world behind their petals and
Crimson smile,—
Like seas hid by a meadow-land.

A trill of leaves is in the wold;
I feel the wings of summer pass,
And sunlight in big drops of gold
Falls on the seedy feathered grass.

Some tiny cuckoo never seen
Blows his own echo mild as mist.
A deer there, stirring in the green!
A squirrel, where the branches kissed.

Far through, a sweep of aspen-boughs
And birches whitening tow'rd the crest
Reclines, like river-grass, and flows
Along the summer to the West,

Farther away, till last of all
In milky hazes lying furled
Is—nothing more. 'T is we recall
Infinity back to the world.

In the bow-window that looks out
Over the sunset-coloured bay
We sat one evening, wondering and in doubt.

The water plashing on the quay
Roused the warm air, and half-awake
One hill we knew was changing golden-gray.

We strained our sight upon the lake;
We dared not anything to say,
For fear your heart and mine might haply break.

Our tired eyes soon filled with tears,
And we said nothing. But your hand
Was like a heart that understands and hears.

[1896]

We missed the sunset, love, to-night—
The sunset on the sea that sings,
Folding about its heart of light
The large and melancholy wings.

A snowy gull may've moved along
The rose and gray and violet bands,
Serene as thought and pure as song,
Beyond our line of open sands;

A moonbeam on the fisher net,
A sail that lay upon the sea,
A rim of pebbles darkly wet:
It all was not for you and me.

A sunset lost, a life foregone!
Beauty that asked our heart and died!
What said we? did we match the Sun
With aught of Heart, my love?—My bride,

One look you gave was twice a sky.
I kissed your hand, you said a word

That greater is for melody
Than all the tides a coast-land heard.

One sunset lost, one look the more!—
The night is quieting the foam.
Hear you? “Come,” says the endless shore,
And all the waves in murmur, “Come.”

He rests upon her knee his tired head;
His eye, long worried, sleeps;
And she, whose perfect love has nothing said,
Her hand upon his forehead keeps.

Thro' darkening windows blows the ancient spring;
A planet trembles, kind.
Her large wet eyes are vastly wondering,
Her happy love resembles wind.

The breeze about her finger stirs his hair,
And her breath rises, falls.
So their unfolding presence thro' the air
In soft and low surprises calls.

He touches her in dream and follows her,
For nearness of her fails.
And the spring night of green and gossamer
Around beloved and lover pales.

University of Virginia Library

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