Beautiful eyes,— and shall I see no more The living thought when it would leap from them, And play in all its sweetness‘ neath their lids? Here was a man familiar with fair heights
That poets climb. Upon his peace the tears And troubles of our race deep inroads made, Yet life was sweet to him; he kept his heart At home. Who saw his wife might well have thought,—
“God loves this man. He chose a wife for him,— The true one!” O sweet eyes, that seem to live, I know so much of you, tell me the rest! Eyes full of fatherhood and tender care
For small, young children. Is a message here That you would fain have sent, but had not time? If such there be, I promise, by long love And perfect friendship, by all trust that comes
Of understanding, that I will not fail, No, nor delay to find it. O, my heart Will often pain me as for some strange fault,—
Some grave defect in nature,— when I think How I, delighted,‘ neath those olive-trees, Moved to the music of the tideless main, While, with sore weeping, in an island home
They laid that much-loved head beneath the sod, And I did not know. I stand on the bridge where last we stood When young leaves played at their best.
The children called us from yonder wood, And rock-doves crooned on the nest. Ah, yet you call,— in your gladness call,— And I hear your pattering feet;
It does not matter, matter at all, You fatherless children sweet,— It does not matter at all to you, Young hearts that pleasure besets;
The father sleeps, but the world is new, The child of his love forgets. I too, it may be, before they drop, The leaves that flicker to-day,
Ere bountiful gleams make ripe the crop, Shall pass from my place away: Ere yon gray cygnet puts on her white, Or snow lies soft on the wold,
Shall shut these eyes on the lovely light, And leave the story untold. Shall I tell it there? Ah, let that be, For the warm pulse beats so high;
To love to-day, and to breathe and see,— To-morrow perhaps to die,— Leave it with God. But this I have known, That sorrow is over soon;
Some in dark nights, sore weeping alone, Forget by full of the moon. But if all loved, as the few can love, This world would seldom be well;
And who need wish, if he dwells above, For a deep, a long death knell. There are four or five, who, passing this place, While they live will name me yet;
And when I am gone will think on my face, And feel a kind of regret.
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