SONNETS TO C. N. M.
THE NINTH WAVE.
Lo, now, the end of all things come at last!—
The great ninth wave, whose coming none might stay;
A bitter wave made strong to ruin and slay!
I stretch my hopeless hands out to the past
From which it whirls me; and I hear a blast
Of melancholy music sweep this way,
That makes my very soul afraid to pray,
And all my life shrink fainting and aghast.
O dead mute mouths and unrecording eyes;
Dead hearts that loved me,—is it well with ye?
Is death made sweeter, now that even she
For whom alway my spirit thirsts and cries—
Who, going, took the light from out of my skies—
Has joined your high and silent company?
BEREAVEMENT.
What words have I for thee o'er whom I bow,
Whose soul has reached the undiscovered land?
In densest midnight of my life I stand,—
The light which lightened it is darkened now.
Thy love cruel Death would not to me allow;
Once more went forth the inexorable command,
And in thy place he sets at my right hand
A still sad ghost, thine absence to avow.
To-day I look away from Death, and see
The bitter days thy love sustained me through;
Bright days thy love made brighter — let them be;
I move about a world I never knew—
A sunless, soulless world that knows not thee
From whose dear life my life took strength and grew.
ALONE.
Not as of old times do I come, to-day,
To breathe the strength and freshness of the sea
Until as part of it I seemed to be,—
Part of the sea-wind and the blowing spray:
She who once came with me is far away,
For Death was kind to her, though cruel to me,
And all my empty life drifts aimlessly,
Like vessels that no more their helm obey.
O sea, that had my childish love and hers,
What message from my dead one dost thou bring?
Surely with me through thee her soul confers,
In some inexplicable way, to wring
Mine eyes with bitterest tears, remembering
What no more lights my dark, disastrous years.
THY BIRTHDAY.
To-day it is thy birthday; but we twain
Are not together as in days gone by,—
Silence and darkness gird thee round, and I
Apart from thee for a brief while remain.
Some little joy; perhaps some strange new pain;
Some doubt; some wonder, —then my spirit's cry
To which my bitter singing made reply,
Shall cease, and leave me what the gods ordain.
What that may be, indeed, we cannot know:
Silence and patient night, methinks; and yet
No man can surely say that this is so.
Thy heart to-day may on past days be set,
Even as mine is, wandering to and fro
In sunset lands where tongueless ghosts are met.
EIGHT YEARS AGO.
To-night for the first time, eight years gone by,
We stood in Dante's Florence, and felt beat
Our hearts to know we passed where fell his feet.
To-night I walk beneath an English sky,
And round me, meek and very peacefully
Our English country stretches. Oh, how fleet,
How fair with dreams accomplished, heavenly sweet,
Was that, our sovereign month in Italy!
I wonder if your soul has been, this hour,
To lean with mine where sacred Arno flows,
So much, to-night, the Past asserts its power.
Nay, no dream comes through your divine repose
Deep under grass and many a watching flower;
'T was but my love that feigned it drew thee close.
FIVE YEARS AGO.
Five years ago to-day, since Death, thy friend,
Hushed all the music of thy noble life
With his long, icy kiss, and called thee wife;
And I am five years nearer to the end,
When with the stars and winds my life shall blend.
This loud and populous world to-day is rife
With thoughts of thee. O wild and tragic strife
Of one who wars with memories that rend!
Dear heart, which for so long beat close to mine,
Nor quailed before the darkness, and could bear
With bitterness and violence of despair,
Rest, in these later days, deep rest is thine;
And I, bereft of hope, too sad for prayer,
Still kneel, in soul, and worship at thy shrine.
AFTER READING IN INGRAM'S MONOGRAPH
ON OLIVER MADOX BROWN
THE CHAPTER ENTITLED “FRIENDSHIP.”
I.
Walking my way, with face to sorrow set,
A voice, most like the wind's voice when it says
Some grieving word within a pine-thronged place
Spake low to me; and turning round, I met
The eyes my spirit never may forget,
Then for long time unseen; and down the ways
A spectral band, the ghosts of my old days,
Came to me sighing, “Ah, not forgotten yet!”
And some looked sad, and some were garlanded
With flowers that long ago made fair the land;
And in the midst there came, hand clasped in hand,
My friend, and those to whom my life was wed.
“But ah, what shape,” I cried, “now heads the band?”
“What shape but thine old self?” the wind's voice said.
II.
And did it really live, that far-off day,
That day in March, so memorably sweet,
When to the country went our hastening feet,
And small spring flowers made blithe the country way,
And birds sang to us of the coming May;
And in the soft, blue air, with song replete,
We felt glad presage of the longed-for heat,
When summer should be come in brave array?
Now only one of us can ever go
To give Spring welcome where skies show more clear,
When birds attest the glad youth of the year;
And grief is not quite unassuaged, while so,
On winds that, whispering, wander to and fro,
Spring's inner message the hushed heart can hear.
