The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

So, there; you have told me all;
And you want to know what we must do;
Your love is great, but your purse is small,
And you leave me free, if I like, to fall
From my word to you.

But what, if I am not free
To take my freedom again?
What, if this foolish heart in me
Rather far would be bound than be
Without its chain?

It is not the promise that binds,
But the love that changeth not;
And pledges taken of faithless minds
I hold them but as the idle winds,
Heard, and forgot.

I am bound, be your lot what it may,
Bound fast, for I would not be free,
Bound by the love that will have its own way,
And will hold me for ever, whatever you say,
And whatever you be.

Would you be richer without
The love I have given to you?
Would you be abler to go about,
Doing your work without fear or doubt,
Were I less true?

Ah! well; it might break my heart,
But yet I could let it break,
If I thought you would play a nobler part,
While I pined away with this love-sick dart,
And its life-long ache.

284

You would not? Your life would be wrecked?
Nay, I dare not say that: yet I fear
It would not be good for your soul to reflect,
How the bloom and the glory of love had been checked
In the spring o' the year.

It is bad, having once known the right,
And the impulse of nobleness prized,
To accept the less worthy, and order the fight
For a cause that is meaner, and walk by a light
That you once had despised.

I am not afraid to be poor,
I am not afraid of toil,
With you I could labour, with you too endure;
But I fear to lose what keeps the flame of life pure
As with sacredest oil.

But we must not hurry or fret,
Or think of ourselves alone;
Love waits for love, though the sun be set,
And the stars come out, and the dews are wet,
And the night winds moan.

That which is thine must be mine—
Home and friends and affairs,
Father and mother—mine and thine;
I have thy love, but I long and pine
To have also theirs.

Your mother dislikes me, I see;
Her face is hard and set
The moment she enters a room with me;
But if love will do it, I mean that she
Shall love me yet.

Be still, and wait for the light;
It is hard for a mother to part
With the son who made her life full and bright,
And to think that another woman has right
To his whole true heart.

I know what you must be to her,
For I know what you are now to me;
I can feel how her bosom must throb and stir,
As if some robber of love I were
With a master-key.

But I will not part her and you:
I could not enter a home
To sever old ties so tender and true;
Yea, let me rather bring fresh and new
For the days to come.

Ah me! we are often unkind,
We who live for our love alone:
We think of ourselves, and are cold and blind
To the anxious heart, and the troubled mind
Half-turned to stone.

Like the dew in the heart of the flower
That bends with its burden of bliss,
Folding it close in the petalled bower,
You have lain in her heart from the first mother-hour
And the first mother-kiss.

And now from that heart's warm core
Shall I drain off its fondly-clasped joy?
Nay, but you shall be only her gladness more
Than all that you ever have been before
As a man or a boy.

Do you know that I like her the best?
Your father is nice and free,
With his pleasant talk and his light-some jest,
But he speaks and smiles unto all the rest
As he does to me:

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While she has a freezing look
Whenever I come her way,
And the formal speech of a printed book—
Though I see, with a friend in a quiet nook
She is bright and gay.

But I know 'tis her love of you
That makes her distrust me so;
And I like her for that, for I love you too,
And I think that her love of me will be as true
When she comes to know.

Daughter to her I will be,
Love me she shall in the end;
Thoughtful and dutiful, you shall see
My love will find out the way, and she
Shall call me a friend.

Let her be cross for a while,
I will only be sweeter for that;
Let her frown if she will, I will meekly smile,
And let her scold, I will walk a mile
To be rated at.

But love me she shall, if her heart
Is as true as I think it to be;
Be patient, and see how I play my part,
And oh, my love will have perfect art,
When I think of thee!