The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

And shall I then complain if thou, the sea-wind meeting,
Dost sigh for flowers and woods and the soft warm wind fleeting
Along the forest-glades?
I sitting close by thee am like the midnight olden
Watching the young sun, full of gorgeous mirth and golden,
Gild one by one the green groves' colonnades!

Behind me stretch long leagues of weary desert marches:
Before thee open out gay miles of forest-arches:
Life is to thee quite new.
I lived before the flood, and saw the ancient cities,
And sang amid the white weird walls old strange love-ditties,
And watched with young wide eyes the old cloudless blue.

While thou dost yearn for life, and softly sighest after
The thyme on river-banks, I yearn for the great laughter
That through the lips of death
Sallies. While thou dost pluck wherever bright green hill is
The stems of hare-bells blue and sisterly white lilies,
I pant to meet the far sea's flowerless breath.

And yet thou art mine! thou art mine! Because my whole soul sorrows
To think how little part in thy bright golden morrows
Of sunny life have I:
Because I have loved thee not with selfish soulless yearning,
But with the sea's deep love, and with the sinless burning
Passion of stars and hills, and of the sky:

Because I have loved thee thus,—where'er thy pathway leadeth,
As through the vales of flowers thy happy young foot speedeth,
I follow; I follow amain:
And when the darkness comes and other loves are failing,
And, watching death's grim sea, thou feelest doubt assailing,
Call thou for me. Thou shalt not call in vain.

Then looking in my face it may be thou shalt, growing
At last to larger life, behold the strong love glowing
Within me, and shalt rise,
And meet the sea's wide glance, triumphal, strong, and tearless,
And my glance, and love's glance, soul-virginal and fearless,
With equal kindred deep impassioned eyes.