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 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. II 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 -- III 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. IV 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: V Ere you grey 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. VI 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 -- VII 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. VIII 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? IX 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE THREE ENEMIES by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI EPIGRAM: 18. THE ENEMY OF LIFE by THOMAS WYATT PROMETHEUS BOUND: THE OVERTHROW OF ZEUS by AESCHYLUS ON HOMER'S BIRTHPLACE by ANTIPATER OF SIDON TO -- OCCASIONED BY HIS POEM ON THE SUN by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD WERE IT ONLY NOW by A. W. BELL NO MORE DREAMING by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |