Songs, Merry and Sad Part 1

Songs, Merry and Sad.

by John Charles McNeill.

The Bride

The little white bride is left alone With him, her lord; the guests have gone; The festal hall is dim.

No jesting now, nor answering mirth.

The hush of sleep falls on the earth And leaves her here with him.

Why should there be, O little white bride, When the world has left you by his side, A tear to brim your eyes?

Some old love-face that comes again, Some old love-moment sweet with pain Of pa.s.sionate memories?

Does your heart yearn back with last regret For the maiden meads of mignonette And the fairy-haunted wood, That you had not withheld from love, A little while, the freedom of Your happy maidenhood?

Or is it but a nameless fear, A wordless joy, that calls the tear In dumb appeal to rise, When, looking on him where he stands, You yield up all into his hands, Pleading into his eyes?

For days that laugh or nights that weep You two strike oars across the deep With life's tide at the brim; And all time's beauty, all love's grace Beams, little bride, upon your face Here, looking up at him.

"Oh, Ask Me Not"

Love, should I set my heart upon a crown, Squander my years, and gain it, What recompense of pleasure could I own?

For youth's red drops would stain it.

Much have I thought on what our lives may mean, And what their best endeavor, Seeing we may not come again to glean, But, losing, lose forever.

Seeing how zealots, making choice of pain, From home and country parted, Have thought it life to leave their fellows slain, Their women broken-hearted;

How teasing truth a thousand faces claims, As in a broken mirror, And what a father died for in the flames His own son scorns as error;

How even they whose hearts were sweet with song Must quaff oblivion's potion, And, soon or late, their sails be lost along The all-surrounding ocean:

Oh, ask me not the haven of our s.h.i.+ps, Nor what flag floats above you!

I hold you close, I kiss your sweet, sweet lips, And love you, love you, love you!

Isabel

When first I stood before you, Isabel, I stood there to adore you, In your spell; For all that grace composes, And all that beauty knows is Your face above the roses, Isabel.

You knew the charm of flowers, Isabel, Which, like incarnate hours, Rose and fell At your bosom, glowed and gloried, White and pale and pink and florid, And you touched them with your forehead, Isabel.

Amid the jest and laughter, Isabel, I saw you, and thereafter, Ill or well, There was nothing else worth seeing, Worth following or fleeing, And no reason else for being, Isabel.

To ------

Some time, far hence, when Autumn sheds Her frost upon your hair, And you together sit at dusk, May I come to you there?

And lightly will our hearts turn back To this, then distant, day When, while the world was clad in flowers, You two were wed in May.

When we shall sit about your board Three old friends met again, Joy will be with us, but not much Of jest and laughter then; For Autumn's large content and calm, Like heaven's own smile, will bless The harvest of your happy lives With store of happiness.

May you, who, flankt about with flowers, Will plight your faith to-day, Hold, evermore enthroned, the love Which you have crowned in May; And Time will sleep upon his scythe, The swallow rest his wing, Seeing that you at autumntide Still clasp the hands of spring.

To Melvin Gardner: Suicide

A flight of doves, with wanton wings, Flash white against the sky.

In the leafy copse an oriole sings, And a robin sings hard by.

Sun and shadow are out on the hills; The swallow has followed the daffodils; In leaf and blade, life throbs and thrills Through the wild, warm heart of May.

To have seen the sun come back, to have seen Children again at play, To have heard the thrush where the woods are green Welcome the new-born day, To have felt the soft gra.s.s cool to the feet, To have smelt earth's incense, heavenly sweet, To have shared the laughter along the street, And, then, to have died in May!

A thousand roses will blossom red, A thousand hearts be gay, For the summer lingers just ahead And June is on her way; The bee must bestir him to fill his cells, The moon and the stars will weave new spells Of love and the music of marriage bells-- And, oh, to be dead in May!

Away Down Home

'T will not be long before they hear The bullbat on the hill, And in the valley through the dusk The pastoral whippoorwill.

A few more friendly suns will call The bluets through the loam And star the lanes with b.u.t.tercups Away down home.

"Knee-deep!" from reedy places Will sing the river frogs.

The terrapins will sun themselves On all the jutting logs.

The angler's cautious oar will leave A trail of drifting foam Along the shady currents Away down home.

The mocking-bird will feel again The glory of his wings, And wanton through the balmy air And suns.h.i.+ne while he sings, With a new cadence in his call, The glint-wing'd crow will roam From field to newly-furrowed field Away down home.