 | Love-Songs |  |
50
THE MAGIC OF MEMORY.
I.
When you were with me, sweet, I could not lead
Your presence through the corridors of rhyme:
But you are smitten by the snows of time,
And by swift disappointment's sword I bleed,
And, having chosen an unselfish creed,
In every flowery avenue of mind
A gracious footprint of my love's I find,
And sonnets spring by thousands out of seed!
Your presence through the corridors of rhyme:
But you are smitten by the snows of time,
And by swift disappointment's sword I bleed,
And, having chosen an unselfish creed,
In every flowery avenue of mind
A gracious footprint of my love's I find,
And sonnets spring by thousands out of seed!
Before I lost you, I was silent,—now
That I have given you into other hands,
The gardens of my brain are tuneful lands,
And linnets twitter round about my brow,
And nightingales are loud on every bough,
And thrushes chant your praise in laughing bands.
That I have given you into other hands,
The gardens of my brain are tuneful lands,
And linnets twitter round about my brow,
And nightingales are loud on every bough,
And thrushes chant your praise in laughing bands.
II.
The roads we trod together, gleam and shine,—Grey, cold, and sour, and flint-bedecked before,—
But now the moon of fancy on the shore
Of bitter absence sheds a silver line,
51
To elude our present overpowering tread,
But flame in sweet prismatic green and red
And gold and fairy lacework clean and fine
When distance has transfigured the broad field—
So every stone we touched in this dull town,
Then garbed in ordinary dust and brown,
A golden flash of colour seems to yield,
And shines like some anointed luscious shield,
Under the bitter fire of memory's frown.
| Love-Songs | |