In starlight, or in rain;
In the sunset's shrouded glow;
Ever, with joy or pain,
To you my quick thoughts go
Like winds or clouds, that fleet
Across the hungry space
Between, and find you, sweet,
Where life again wins grace.
Now, as in that once young
Year that so softly drew
My heart to where it clung,
I long for, gladden in you.
And when in the silent hours
I whisper your sacred name,
Like an altar-fire it showers
My blood with fragrant flame!
Perished is all that grieves;
And lo, our old-new joys
Are gathered as in sheaves,
Held in love's equipoise.
Ours is the love that lives;
Its springtime blossoms blow
'Mid the fruit that autumn gives,
And its life outlasts the snow.
IV
BLUEBIRD'S GREETING
Over the mossy walls,
Above the slumbering fields
Where yet the ground no fruitage yields,
Save as the sunlight falls
In dreams of harvest-yellow,
What voice remembered calls,--
So bubbling fresh, so soft and mellow?
A darting, azure-feathered arrow
From some lithe sapling's bow-curve, fleet
The bluebird, springing light and narrow,
Sings in flight, with gurglings sweet:
"Out of the South I wing,
Blown on the breath of Spring:
The little faltering song
That in my beak I bring
Some maiden shall catch and sing,
Filling it with the longing
And the blithe, unfettered thronging
Of her spirit's blossoming.
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