Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WIFE'S SONG by CONSTANCE CAROLINE WOODHILL NADEN

First Line: SHE KNEELS WITH FOLDED HANDS, AS THOUGH SHE PRAYED
Last Line: "BUT WE ARE ONE AT HEAVEN'S HEIGHT."
I. NIGHT.

SHE kneels with folded hands, as though she prayed;
Over her pure, pale cheek the moonlight streams,
And o'er the slender form, in white arrayed;
Her room is consecrate to bridal dreams,
And she is like some lonely priestess-maid,
Believing, though her god be silent long,
And in his temple chanting secret song.

"To heaven I lift my longing eyes,
Knowing that yonder tranquil moon
Is bright for you in western skies.
And has she power your soul to tune
In subtlest harmony divine
With all the passioned thoughts of mine?

"Nay, rather let her give you rest,
In peace to sleep, with joy to wake;
Yet, if a dream the slumber break,
Dream of my yearning lips and breast,
Hungered and lone, far off and sad,
But dream them near, and dream them glad!"



II. MORNING.

Now has she slept; nor fell there any blight
Over her beauty from those wakeful hours;
Her darkest grief was but a moonlit night,
Tuneful with birds, and sweet with summer flowers,
Closed by an early daybreak of delight;
And now she lifts anew her matin chant,
With all the garden conjubilant.

"The morning sunshine floods my room,
its tender glow my brow has kissed,
And scattered all the night-born gloom;
Yon, floating, thin, translucent mist,
Pierced through and through with living gold
Makes lovelier what it half enshrouds,
And you in distant skies behold
The self-same sun, but other clouds.

"Trim English lowlands bloom for me,
For you, Atlantic waves are bright;
For both, o'er earth, and sky, and sea,
Through thought and passion, mind and heart,
Still streams the same all-glorious light:
Earth's barriers keep us far apart,
But we are one at heaven's height."




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