The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems Part 6

VALE

Good-bye, sweet friend, good-bye, And all the world must be Between my friend and me; And nothing is, dear heart, But hands that meet to part; Good-bye, sweet friend, good-bye.

Good-bye, sweet love, good-bye, And one long grave must be Between my love and me; What comfort there, dear heart, For hands that meet to part?

Good-bye, sweet love, good-bye.

THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD

Just this one day in all the year Let all be one, let all be dear; Wife, husband, child in fond embrace, And thrust the phantom from its place.

No bitter words, no frowning brow, Disturb the Christmas festal, now The skeleton's behind the door.

Nor let the child, with looks askance, Find out its sad inheritance From souls that held no happiness, Of home, where love is seldom guest; But in his coming years retain This one sweet night that had no pain; The skeleton's behind the door.

In vain you raise the wa.s.sail bowl, And pledge your pa.s.sion, soul to soul.

You hear the sweet bells ring in rhyme, You wreath the room for Christmas time In vain. The solemn silence falls, The death watch ticks within the walls; The skeleton taps on the door.

Then let him back into his place, Let us sit out the old disgrace; Nor seek the phantom now to lay, That haunted us through every day; For plainer is the ghost; useless Is this pretence of happiness; The skeleton taps on the door.

YOU WILL NOT COME AGAIN

The green has come to the leafless tree, The earth brings forth its grain; The flower has come for the honey bee: You will not come again.

The birds have come to the empty nest, All winter full of rain; So music has come where the silence was: You will not come again.

Love will come for the weak lambs' cry; Alas for my heart's dull pain!

In the cycle of change I alone am lone: You will not come again.

THE WRECKAGE

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes, And I out in the storm, And lo! the night had taken wings; I dream me safe and warm.

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes, A wreckers' light for me; My heart is broken on the rocks; I perish in the sea.

I AM THE WORLD

I am the song, that rests upon the cloud; I am the sun: I am the dawn, the day, the hiding shroud, When dusk is done.

I am the changing colours of the tree; The flower uncurled: I am the melancholy of the sea; I am the world.

The other souls that, pa.s.sing in their place, Each in their groove; Out-stretching hands that chain me and embrace, Speak and reprove.

"O atom of that law, by which the earth Is poised and whirled; Behold! you hurrying with the crowd a.s.sert You are the world."

Am I not one with all the things that be Warm in the sun?

All that my ears can hear, or eyes can see, Till all be done.

Of song and s.h.i.+ne, of changing leaf apart, Of bud uncurled: With all the senses pulsing at my heart, I am the world.

One day the song that drifts upon the wind, I shall not hear; Nor shall the rosy shoots to eyes grown blind Again appear.

Deaf, in the dark, I shall arise and throw From off my soul, The withered world with all its joy and woe, That was my goal.

I shall arise, and like a shooting star Slip from my place; So lingering see the old world from afar Revolve in s.p.a.ce.

And know more things than all the wise may know Till all be done; Till One shall come who, breathing on the stars, Blows out the sun.

A NEW YEAR

Behold! a new white world!

The falling snow Has cloaked the last old year And bid him go.

To-morrow! cries the oak-tree To his heart, My sealed buds shall fling Their leaves apart.

To-morrow! pipes the robin, And again How sweet the nest that long Was full of rain.

To-morrow! bleats the sheep, And one by one My little lambs shall frolic 'Neath the sun.

For us, too, let some fair To-morrow be, O Thou who weavest threads Of Destiny!

Thou wast a babe on that Far Christmas Day, Let us as children follow In Thy way.

So that our hearts grown cold 'Neath time and pain, With young sweet faith may blossom Green again.

That empty promises Of pa.s.sing years Spring into life, and not Repenting tears.

So that our deeds upon The earth may go, As innocent as lambs, And pure as snow.