Poems By the Way Part 23

Their talk and their laughter mingling with the music of the meads Has now no meaning to me to help or to hinder my needs, So far from them have I drifted.

And yet amidst of them goes A part of myself, my boy, and of pleasure and pain he knows, And deems it something strange, when he is other than glad.

Lo now! the woman that stoops and kisses the face of the lad, And puts a rake in his hand and laughs in his laughing face.

Whose is the voice that laughs in the old familiar place?

Whose should it be but my love's, if my love were yet on the earth?

Could she refrain from the fields where my joy and her joy had birth, When I was there and her child, on the gra.s.s that knew her feet 'Mid the flowers that led her on when the summer eve was sweet?

No, no, it is she no longer; never again can she come And behold the hay-wains creeping o'er the meadows of her home; No more can she kiss her son or put the rake in his hand That she handled a while agone in the midst of the haymaking band.

Her laughter is gone and her life; there is no such thing on the earth, No share for me then in the stir, no share in the hurry and mirth.

Nay, let me look and believe that all these will vanish away, At least when the night has fallen, and that she will be there 'mid the hay, Happy and weary with work, waiting and longing for love.

There will she be, as of old, when the great moon hung above, And lightless and dead was the village, and nought but the weir was awake; There will she rise to meet me, and my hands will she hasten to take, And thence shall we wander away, and over the ancient bridge By many a rose-hung hedgerow, till we reach the sun-burnt ridge And the great trench digged by the Romans: there then awhile shall we stand, To watch the dawn come creeping o'er the fragrant lovely land, Till all the world awaketh, and draws us down, we twain, To the deeds of the field and the fold and the merry summer's gain.

Ah thus, only thus shall I see her, in dreams of the day or the night, When my soul is beguiled of its sorrow to remember past delight.

She is gone. She was and she is not; there is no such thing on the earth But e'en as a picture painted; and for me there is void and dearth That I cannot name or measure.

Yet for me and all these she died, E'en as she lived for awhile, that the better day might betide.

Therefore I live, and I shall live till the last day's work shall fail.

Have patience now but a little and I will tell you the tale Of how and why she died, and why I am weak and worn, And have wandered away to the meadows and the place where I was born; But here and to-day I cannot; for ever my thought will stray To that hope fulfilled for a little and the bliss of the earlier day.

Of the great world's hope and anguish to-day I scarce can think; Like a ghost, from the lives of the living and their earthly deeds I shrink.

I will go adown by the water and over the ancient bridge, And wend in our footsteps of old till I come to the sun-burnt ridge, And the great trench digged by the Romans; and thence awhile will I gaze, And see three teeming counties stretch out till they fade in the haze; And in all the dwellings of man that thence mine eyes shall see, What man as hapless as I am beneath the sun shall be?

O fool, what words are these?

Thou hast a sorrow to nurse, And thou hast been bold and happy; but these, if they utter a curse, No sting it has and no meaning, it is empty sound on the air.

Thy life is full of mourning, and theirs so empty and bare, That they have no words of complaining; nor so happy have they been That they may measure sorrow or tell what grief may mean.

And thou, thou hast deeds to do, and toil to meet thee soon; Depart and ponder on these through the sun-worn afternoon.

MINE AND THINE.

FROM A FLEMISH POEM OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

Two words about the world we see, And nought but Mine and Thine they be.

Ah! might we drive them forth and wide With us should rest and peace abide; All free, nought owned of goods and gear, By men and women though it were.

Common to all all wheat and wine Over the seas and up the Rhine.

No manslayer then the wide world o'er When Mine and Thine are known no more.

Yea, G.o.d, well counselled for our health, Gave all this fleeting earthly wealth A common heritage to all, That men might feed them therewithal, And clothe their limbs and shoe their feet And live a simple life and sweet.

But now so rageth greediness That each desireth nothing less Than all the world, and all his own; And all for him and him alone.

THE LAY OF CHRISTINE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC.

Of silk my gear was shapen, Scarlet they did on me, Then to the sea-strand was I borne And laid in a bark of the sea.

_O well were I from the World away_.

Befell it there I might not drown, For G.o.d to me was good; The billows bare me up a-land Where grew the fair green-wood.

_O well were I from the World away_.

There came a Knight a-riding With three swains along the way And he took me up, the little-one, On the sea-sand as I lay.

_O well were I from the World away_.

He took me up, and bare me home To the house that was his own, And there bode I so long with him That I was his love alone.

_O well were I from the World away_.

But the very first night we lay abed Befell his sorrow and harm, That thither came the King's ill men, And slew him on mine arm.

_O well were I from the World away_.

There slew they Adalbright the King, Two of his swains slew they, But the third sailed swiftly from the land Sithence I saw him never a day.

_O well were I from the World away_.

O wavering hope of this world's bliss, How shall men trow in thee?

My Grove of Gems is gone away For mine eyes no more to see!

_O well were I from the World away_.

Each hour the while my life shall last Remembereth him alone, Such heavy sorrow have I got From our meeting long agone.

_O well were I from the World away_.

O, early in the morning-tide Men cry: "Christine the fair, Art thou well content with that true love Thou sittest loving there?"

_O well were I from the World away_.

Ah, yea, so well I love him, And so dear my love shall be, That the very G.o.d of Heaven aloft Wors.h.i.+ppeth him and me.

_O well were I from the World away_.

"Ah, all the red gold I have got Well would I give to-day, Only for this and nothing else From the world to win away."

_O well were I from the World away_.

"Nay, midst all folk upon the earth Keep thou thy ruddy gold, And love withal the mighty lord That wedded thee of old."

_O well were I from the World away_.

HILDEBRAND AND h.e.l.lELIL.

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH.

h.e.l.lelil sitteth in bower there, _None knows my grief but G.o.d alone_, And seweth at the seam so fair, _I never wail my sorrow to any other one_.

But there whereas the gold should be With silk upon the cloth sewed she.

Where she should sew with silken thread The gold upon the cloth she laid.