Must I, who walk alone,
Come on it still,
This Puck of
The wise would do away with,
The sunshine
To play with,
Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,
Which once in parting for a
That then seemed long,
Ere time for you was over,
We sealed our own?
Do you remember yet,
O Soul beyond the stars,
Beyond the uttermost dim
Of space,
Dear Soul who found the earth sweet,
Remember by love's grace,
In dreamy hushes of heavenly song,
How suddenly we halted in our climb,
Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill,
Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet,
And gave them as a
Each to each,
In lieu of speech,
In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken,
Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms
With a strange dew of tears?
So it began,
This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover,
To be our tenderest language.
All the
It lent a new zest to the summer hours,
As each of us went scheming to
The other with our homely, laureate flowers,
Sonnets and odes,
Fringing our daily roads.
Can amaranth and
Bring merrier laughter to your eyes?
Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes,
Keep any wistful consciousness of earth,
Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love,
Simplicities of mirth,
Must follow them
With touches of vague homesickness that
Like shadows of swift birds across the grass.
How oft, beneath some foreign arch of sky,
The rover,
You or I,
For life oft sundered look from look,
And voice from voice, the transient
Schooling my soul to
This distance that no messages may span,
Would
Upon our wilding by a lonely well,
Or drowsy watermill,
Or swaying to the chime of convent bell,
Or where the nightingales of old
With tragical contraltos
Dim solitudes of infinite desire;
And once I joyed to
Our peasant gadaboutA trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat,
Twinkling a sauce
As potentates paced by.
Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing
From friendship's altar fire!
How proudly we would pluck and
The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay!
How swiftly they were
Far, far
On journeys
By sea and continent,
Green miles and blue leagues over,
From each of us to each,
That so our hearts might reach And touch within the yellow clover,
Love's letter to be glad
Like sunshine when it came!
My sorrow asks no healing; it is love;
Let love then make me
To bear the keen hurts of This careless summertide,
Ay, of our own poor flower,
Changed with our fatal hour,
For all its sunshine vanished when you died.
Only white cover blossoms on your grave.
