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Cary, Alice, 1820-1871 [1859], The adopted daughter and other tales. (J.B. Smith and Company, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf487T]. To look up a word in a dictionary, select the word with your mouse and press 'd' on your keyboard.
BY ALICE CAREY. I am dying, Harold, dying, And would send thee ere I go The last chrism of joy that rises On the fountain of my woe: Rises out of joys long perished, Overrunning, once, life's hours, As some bright spring of the forest Overruns its rim of flowers. Come they ever to thee, Harold, Like a half remembered song From the time of gladness vanished Down the distance, O, so long! Come they to me—not in sadness, For they strike into my soul, As the sharp axe of the woodsman Strikes the dead and sapless bole.
Life has been to me so dismal, Seems the grave nor dark nor cold, And I listen as to music To the shaping of the mould: When I see the few that love me, Gather close, and tearful eye round, Where our little quiet churchyard Darken's with another mound. Just across the runnel hollow, And the hilltop, bleak and bare, I can see its lines of headstones— I shall not be lonesome there. In the window of my chamber Is a plant in pallid bloom, If the sun shines warm to-morrow, By my yet unshapen tomb I will set it; and at noontide When the schoolgirls thither wend, They will see its blooms of beauty And believe I had a friend. Think'st thou ever, O my Harold, Of that blessed eventide When our footsteps thither straying Turned the golden light aside? When the skies of June above us Hung so lovingly and blue, And the white mists in the meadows Lay like fleeces full of dew.
While the stars along the heavens In illumined furrows lay As if some descending angel Pushed them from his path away. And the west was faintly burning, Where the cloudy day was set, Like a blushing press of kisses— Ay, thou never canst forget! “Agatha, art young—thy future All in sunlight seems to shine— Art content to crown thy maytime Out of autumn love like mine? Couldst thou see my locks a-fading With no sorrow and no fears? For thou know'st I stand in shadows Deep to almost twice thy years.' In that wine my life-blood mounted From my bosom to my brow And I answered simply, truly, I was younger then than now, Were it strange if that a daisy Sheltered from the tempest stroke, Bloomed contented in the shadow Of the overarching oak? When the sun had like a herdsman Clipt the misty waves of morn, By the breezes driven seaward Like a flock of lambs new-shorn;
Thou hast left me, and O, Harold, Half in gladness, half in tears, I was gazing down the future O'er the lapses of the years; To what time the clouds about me— All my night of sorrow done Should blow out their crimson linings O'er the rising of love's sun. And I said in exultation, Not the bright ones in the sky, Then shall know a deeper pleasure Than, my Harold, thou and I. Thrice the scattered seed has sprouted As the spring thaw reappeared, And the winter frosts had grizzled Thrice the autum's yellow beard; When that lovely day of promise Darkened with a dread eclipse, And my heart's long clasped joyance Died in moans upon my lips. I beheld the bright blue summers Cross the hills and fade and die, By the white arms of the northlight Gathered up into the sky And the while, the dove-eyed damsels Sun their beauty in their beams, All love's golden flowers entangled In their rosy skein of dreams.
Silent, sighless I beheld them To a thousand pleasures wed— Save me from the past, good angel, This was all the prayer I said. Sometimes they would smile upon me As their gay troops passed me by Saying softly to each other, How is she content to die? O they little guess the barren Wastes on which my visions go, And the conflicts fierce but silent That at last have made me go. Shall the bright-winged bird be netted Singing in the open fields, And not struggle with the fowler, Long and vainly ere it yields? Last night when the snows were drifting Into furrows, white and long, One that watched with me in sorrow For my comfort sang this song. Haply she was fain to soothe me For the anguish I had known— Haply that I prest the summit Whence my pathway lay alone. O my dear one, O my lover, Comes no faintest sound to you. As I call your sweet words over All the weary night-time through?
Dismally the rain is falling— I can hear it on the pane, But he cannot hear my calling— O, he will not come again! To a pale one sadly lying On her couch of helpless pain, All the lonesome night kept crying— O he will not come again! When the midnight wind went blowing, Rough and wild across the moor, Sadly said she, haply knowing, That her long long watch was o'er; Then, whose heart is still divining, Every wish through mine that thrills, When the morning light is shining Over all the eastern hills; Should he come, and I be dying,— Should my hands be cold as clay, And my lips make no replying To the wild words he will say: From my forehead take this ringlet, He has praised its shining oft, That he said was like the winglet Of an angel gone aloft. Give it softly to his keeping, Saying as I would have said, Go not through the world a-weeping For the sake of her that's dead. And as with the shroud you cover From his gaze my blinded eyes,
Tell him still to be my lover, That I wait him in the skies. Minglings of red and amber Streak the orient, blue and deep, Softly tread along his chamber— She is lying fast asleep. Is't the white hand of her lover Puts her curtain's fold away— Is it he that bends above her, Saying, dear one, wake, 'tis day! No! the wind in spite death's warnings 'Tis that in her curtain stirs, And the blue eyes are the mornings That are bending down to hers. And no wail of wo was lifted As the shroud was folded round, And the shining ringlet drifted Lightly, brightly to the ground. When the lingering echo faded, And the singers' lip grew still, Hers I said is like my story, Only woven less with ill For I listen not in dying For the hurrying step of love— None will miss me, none will seek me Here, nor in the world above. O my lost one, O my Harold, Every earthly hope is flown,
And upon the sea of darkness I am drifting out alone And from dying hands would send thee My forgiveness full and free, For the fount of grief struck open In my young glad heart by thee And may there be still some healing For all pains you ever know, In this latest chrism I send thee From the fountain of my wo.
Cary, Alice, 1820-1871 [1859], The adopted daughter and other tales. (J.B. Smith and Company, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf487T]. |