[IV. The clouds in many a windy rack]
The clouds in many a windy rack
Are sailing east and west,
And sober suns are bringing back
The days I love the best.
The poet, as he will, may go
To Summer's golden prime,
And set the roses in a row
Along his fragrant rhyme;
But as for me, I sing the praise
Of fading flowers and trees,
For to my mind the sweetest days
Of all the year are these:—
When stubbly hills and hazy skies
Proclaim the harvest done,
And Labor wipes his brow, and lies
A-dreaming in the sun,—
And idly hangs the spider on
Her broken silver stair,
And ghosts of thistles, dead and gone,
Slide slow along the air,—
Where all is still, unless perhaps
The cricket makes ado,
Or when the dry-billed heron snaps
Some brittle reed in two,—
Or school-boy tramples through the burs
His tangled path to keep,
Or ripe mast, rustling downward, stirs
The shadows from their sleep.
Ay, he that wills it so may praise
The lilies and the bees;
But as for me, the sweetest days
Of all the year are these.
My darling, in the woodland glen
One hour with me apart,
And let us walk and talk as when
I gave you all my heart.
Ah! wrap you with your veil so thin,
And let us wander slow
To that delicious bower, wherein
We courted, long ago.
Where dying violets scent the air,
And faint the ground-stars burn;
And where I gave my heart, and where
You gave your heart in turn.
We had a quarrel—do you mind?—
About the daisies' eyes;
Whether they closed because the wind
Was singing lullabies.
And you said Yes, and I said No,
And you got vexed and cried;
At that I gave it up, and lo!
You took the other side.
And you said No, and I said Yes;
The bosoms of the flowers
Were sensitive no whit the less,
Nor tender less than ours.
And you, as I remember yet,
Said that might well be true,
If you against them only set
My tenderness for you.
And I said—being sorely stung
That you my love should slight—
A woman always had a tongue
To make the wrong seem right!
So then your brows you darkly bent,
And killed me with a frown;
And I grew softly penitent,
And to my knees went down;
And where that willow of the glen
Shut out the insolent light,
I took you in my arms, and then
I kissed you just for spite!
Ay, just for very spite, I said,
But when your sweet cheek grew
So painfully and proudly red,
I spoke the truth to you;
And, brushing from your face the tear,
You gave me back my kiss,
Nor have we quarrelled once, my dear,
From that glad day to this.
Therefore I leave who will to praise
The lilies and the bees,
For, love of mine, the sweetest days
Of all the year are these.
