Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SIDNEY, by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SIDNEY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Have you forgotten that still afternoon?
Last Line: But a rose-colored rose.
Subject(s): Memory


Have you forgotten that still afternoon?
How fair the fields were, and the brooks how full?
The hills how happy in their hanging green?
The fields were green; and here, in spots and holes
Where the rich rain had settled, greener green.
We sat beside a window to the south,
Talking of nothing, or in silence sat,
Till, weary of the summer-darkened room,
I in an impulse spoke, you smiled; and so
In this consent we wandered forth together
Across the fields to entertain the time.

Shall I retrace those steps until we reach
Again the crossing River? Yes; for so
Again I seem to tread those paths with you:
Here are the garden-beds, the shrubbery,
And moody murmur of the poising bee;
And here the hedge that to the River runs.
Beside me still you moved through meadow flowers;
Beside, yet unapproached; cold as a star
On the morning's purple brink; and seemingly
Unconscious of the world beneath your feet.
Yet as I plucked up handfuls from the grass,
With here and there a flower, telling their names
And talking ignorant words of why they were,
You paused to gather berries in the hedge;
And I despaired to reach you with my words,
Believed you cold, nor wished to find myself
Calling your face back, and as in a dream
Lingering about the places where you were;
And would not if I might, or so it seemed,
Attain unto the property of your love:
Knowing full well that I must soon awake,
Gaze blankly round, and, with a bottomless sigh,
Relapse into my life;--the life I knew
Before I saw your fair hair softly put
From off your temples, and the parted mouth,--
More beautiful indeed than any flower,
Half-open and expectant of the rain.
O youth and loveliness! are ye less dear
Placed at impracticable height, or where
Not wholly clear, but touched with shades and spots
Of coldness and caprice? or do such make
The bright more bright, as sometimes we may see
In the old pictures? Is the knight's brow held
Not noble for its scar? or she less fair,
The lady with the lozenge on her lip?
So may your very failings grace you more;
And I, most foolish in my wisdom, find
The grapes alone are sour we cannot gain.
But, Sidney, look! the River runs below,--
Dark-channelled Deerfield, here beneath our feet,
Unfordable, a natural bar and stay:
Yet, ere you turn, let us look off together,
As travellers from a hill; not separate yet,
But being to be divided, let us look
Upon the mountains and the summer sky;
The meadow with the herd in its green heart;
The ripple, and the rye grass on the bank,
As what we ne'er may so behold again.
And do me right in this; the eye that saw
These accidents and adjuncts could not fail
To mark you, loveliest of the place and time;
A separate beauty, which was yet akin
To all soft graces of the earth and sky,
While wanting naught that human warmth could give.
So, lady, take the bitter from my words:
Let us go onward now; and should you prize
In any way the homage of a heart
Most desolate of love, that finds in all
Still the salt taste of tears, receive it here,
With aught that I can give, or you retain.
Let me, though turning backward with dim eyes,
Recover from the past one golden look,
Remembering this valley of the stream,
And the sweet presence that gave light on all,
And my injustice, and indeed your scorn,
Refusing me the half-stripped clover stalk
Your fingers picked to pieces as we walked.
Yet, ere we part, take from my lips this wish,--
Not from my lips alone, from my heart's midst,--
That your young life may be undimmed with storms,
Nor the wind beat, nor wild rain lash it out,
But over change and sorrow rise and ride,
Leading o'er all a tranquil, lenient light;
And, when your evening comes, around that beam
No tragic twilight brood, but late and long
May your fair beauty linger like a star,--
Like a pure poignant star in the fleecy pink.
But give your poet now one perfect flower,
For here we reach again the garden's bound,
Sweet as yourself, and of one lustre too;
Yet not the red dark bud Damascus yields,
Nor York and Lancaster, nor white, nor yellow
But a rose-colored rose.





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