Chapter V

Junetime came: the days grew kind
With increasing beauty: deep
Were the nights with rest and sleep:
Fair, with poppies intertwined
On their blond locks, went the Hours,
Sunny-hearted as the rose,
Through the buds and banded flowers,
Teaching them, how no one knows,
Freshness, color, and perfume.--
In the window of your room
Bloomed a late azalea. Pink
As an egret's rosy plumes
Shone its tender-tufted blooms.
From your care and love, I think,
Love's rose-color it did drink,
Growing rosier day by day
Through your 'tending hand's caress:
And your own dear naturalness
Had imbued it in some way.
Once you gave a blossom of it,
Smiling, to me when I left:
Need I tell you how I love it
Faded though it is now!--'Reft
Of its fragrance and its color,
Yet 'tis dearer now than then,--As
past happiness is when
Life regrets.--And dimmer, duller
Though its beauty be, when I
Look upon it, I recall
Every part of that old wall;
And the dingy window high,
Where you sat and read; and all
The fond love that made your face
A soft sunbeam in that place:
And the plant that grew this bloom
Withered here, itself long dead,
Makes a halo overhead
There again--and through my room,
Like faint whispers of perfume,
Steal the words of love then said.

VI

All of my love I send to you,
I send to you,
On thoughts, like moths, that wend to you
Out of my heart's glad garden,
O'er which, its lovely warden,
Your face, a lily seeming,
Is dreaming.

All of my life I bring to you,
I bring to you,
In deeds, like birds, that wing to you
Out of my soul's deep valley,
O'er which, most musically,
Your love, a fountain, glistens,
And listens.

My love, my life, how blessed in you!
How blessed in you!
Whose thoughts, whose deeds find rest in you
Here on my life's dark ocean,
O'er which, in heavenly motion,
Your soul, a star, abideth,
And guideth.