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

Ten years of flowers and songs and seas,
What profit hath the soul of these?
What spirit of gladness in the trees
Abideth ever?
What hath the soul the force to clasp
In swift undying eager grasp,
Yea, hold though death's rough fingers rasp,
And part with never?

231

II

What hath the soul the power to take
As new bright crimson mornings break,
And in the breeze the rushes shake
And laugh for gladness?
What lingereth of the loves who went
Adown life's valleys well content
And with the sacred sunsets blent
Their share of sadness?

III

Now all the suns have passed away
And left life's valleys gaunt and grey,
What word of hope is left to say,
What word of greeting?
Ten years of bowers and rose-sweet days
And sorrow's tears in hidden ways
And tender honeysuckle sprays,
How swift, how fleeting!

232

IV

Ten years have passed: their flowers have fled;
Their every gallant rose is dead,
Not one now lifts a laughing head
High gazing sunward;
The blue seas shine,—but not the seas
Which rippled 'neath the ten years' breeze;
The green leaves quiver, and the trees
Pass sunlight onward.

V

But what remains of flowers or sweet
Gold crowns of tender cliff-side wheat?
What white hands for our hands to meet,
Hands sweet as clover?
What bowers of beauty yet remain
Unsmitten by the ten years' rain,
What lips for eager lips to gain,
Now all is over?

233

VI

Death looms in front: what loves behind
Breathe passion on the balmy wind!
What shall our further footsteps find
Of splendid passion?
What rose sublime upon the track
Waits, nobler than the flowers we lack
And yearn for, burn for, gazing back
In eager fashion?

VII

No days had value save the days
When love's foot trod the flowerful ways;
No flowers are sweet save those that raise
Soft heads resplendent
Towards love's caressing subtle hand,
Which brings delight to sea and land,
Adorns with bloom the barren strand
On love dependent.

234

VIII

If this be so, what future waits
Our heart beyond the ten years' gates?
What new loves, passions, sorrows, hates,
Swift disappointment?
What tenderest resting through the night
On very love's soft bosom white?
What climbing towards a kingly height,
What proud anointment?

IX

The hand of death it may be gleams,
Ending all loves and hopes and dreams,
Where some not far-off morning beams—
Death's hand there lingereth:
Eager, a foeman sinewy, tall,
He summons without bugle-call,
And while he grimly waiteth all,
His sword he fingereth.

235

X

But there are fingers sweeter far
Than death's cold grisly fingers are;
Beneath no sun, beneath night's star
The soft hand waiteth:
It toucheth like a touching rose,
And sends the tingling blood in throes
Past speaking sweet through heart that glows
As pain abateth.

XI

And there are flowers that blossom still
In green secluded vale, or fill
With sweetness all the thymy hill,
Though gone for ever
Are ten years' buds and ten years' bloom,
Swallowed within the unopening tomb
Whose fierce lips seize each year's perfume
And yield it never.

236

XII

And there are faces tender yet,
Though gone past hope are those we met
When still the morning dews were wet
On green buds swelling:
Though now life's noon sucks up the dew
And cloudless burns the midday blue,
Love's bloom of face hath sweeter hue
And charm more telling.

Oct. 20, 1880.