Yet we have some little ones, still ours; They have kept the baby smile we know, Which we kissed one day, and hid with flowers, On their dead white faces, long ago. When our Joy is lost-and life will take it- Save with some strange, cruel sting, to make it Death, more tender-hearted, leaves to sorrow Is Love ours, and do we dream we know it, Bound with all our heart-strings, all our own? Any cold and cruel dawn may show it, Shattered, desecrated, overthrown. Only the dead Hearts forsake us never; So when Fate would fain besiege our city, Dim our gold, or make our flowers fall, Death, the Angel, comes in love and pity, And to save our treasures, claims them all. A WOMAN'S ANSWER. WILL not let you say a Woman's part Must be to give exclusive love alone; Dearest, although I love you so, my heart Answers a thousand claims besides your own. I love what do I not love? earth and air I love the summer with her ebb and flow Of light, and warmth, and music that have nurst Her tender buds to blossoms . . . and you know It was in summer that I saw you first. I love the winter dearly too, ... but then I owe it so much; on a winter's day, Bleak, cold, and stormy, you returned again, When you had been those weary months away. I love the Stars like friends; so many nights I gazed at them, when you were far from me, Till I grew blind with tears.... those far off lights Could watch you, whom I longed in vain to see. I love the Flowers; happy hours lie Keep every fragment of the golden Past. I love, too, to be loved; all loving praise It better worth the giving, and to raise take. I love all good and noble souls ;—I heard In tender memory of such generous praise. I love all those who love you; all who owe Even for those poorer hearts who once could know, Well, is my heart so narrow-I, who spare Love for all these? Do I not even hold My favourite books in special tender care, And prize them as a miser does his gold? The Poets that you used to read to me Will you be jealous? Did you guess before Oh, more a thousand times than all the rest! |