New Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The limpid water passes,
And whispers at our feet,
The worn-out leaves and grasses
The west wind's voice repeat;
They say the summer goes
In music to its close.

The beech-woods high above us
Pour down from breezy air,—
As if in proof they love us,—
Deep shadow debonair;
They hang aloft and find
The last faint streams of wind.

Below our feet the river,
With its old weedy smell,
Pursues its bent for ever,
With no new tale to tell;
Its reeds will quiver on
Till Time is dead and gone.

And where last year the lily,
Unfolding its green bowl,
Hung in the water stilly
Its contemplative soul,
A younger flower as fair
Has felt the autumn air.

In this enchanted leisure
The only restless thing
Is one loose ray of azure,
A dragon-fly on wing;
The rustling of its flight
Is like the sound of light.

I hold your hand, and wonder,
My dear, if all be true;
Can no power part asunder
When Love makes one of two?
The powers of nature say
In flower and shadow ‘Nay!’

Then with the river's blessing,
And the wood's solemn prayer,
And this soft wind caressing
Our foreheads and our hair,
Without a word or sign
Lay your sweet mouth to mine.

And if I faint to feel it,—
My weak heart beating high,—
O haste and press, to seal it,
Another lest I die;
The second kiss will give
Me strength, and I shall live.

So when the years before us
Pass slowly one by one,
Till all the gifts they bore us
Are ripe beneath the sun,
When we are old and sere
Like corn in russet ear,—

Do thou, my love, remember
The sweet still autumn day,
When time was in September,
But passion scarce in May,
While in a golden dream
We lay beside the stream;

When all bright hours are over
That make such speed to pass,
Forget not thine old lover,
The sunshine and the grass;
O let not memory miss
That first enchanted kiss.