THE EVENING HOURS

I


Tender flowers, light as the sea's foam,
Graced our garden way;
The lapsing wind would give your hands caress
And with your hair would play.

The shade was kind to our united steps
That wandered soberly;
And from the village a child's song arose
To fill infinity.

Our ponds extended in the autumn light
Beneath the guarding reed,
And the wood's forehead showed its mobile crown
To pools upon the mead.

And we, who knew our hearts were murmuring
In union but one prayer,
Thought that it was our peaceful life the eve
Showed unveiled there.

Supremely then you saw the sky aglow
For a farewell caress;
And long and long you looked on it with eyes
Filled with mute tenderness.




II


If it be true
That garden flower or meadow tree
May hold still any memory
Of lovers past who once looked on
Their splendour or their purity,
So shall our love return once more
In that long hour of long regret
To give the rose, or in the oak restore,
Its sweetness or its strength,
Ere death come yet.

Thus shall it survive unconquered
Within the glory that belongs to simple things,
And find a joy again, in light that cleaves
The sky on summer break of day,
And find a joy again
In the sweet rain
That dwells in drops on hanging leaves.

And if on some fair eve, from depths of space,
Should come two lovers hand in hand,
The oak, like a large and puissant wing
Would reach its shadow out to where they stand,
And the rose would give them of its perfumed grace.




III


Dead is the glycin and the hawthorne flower;
But now is the time when heather-bloom is seen,
And on this so calm eve the rustling wind
Brings you the fragrance of the starved Campine.

Love and breathe them, thinking of its fate;
Over that rugged soil the storm-wind lives;
Sand and sea have made of it their prey,
Yet of the little left, it ever gives.

Of old, though autumn came, we dwelled with it,
With plain and forest, with the storm and light,
Until the angels of the Christmas time
Inscribed its legend with their winged flight.

Your heart became more simple and more sure;
We loved the villagers and the forlorn
Old women who would speak of their great age
And of old spinning-wheels their hands had worn.

Our quiet house upon the misty heath
Was frank and welcoming to all who came;
Its roof was dear to us, its door and sill,
And hearth long blackened by familiar flame.

When over vast, pale, measureless repose
The total splendour of the night was set,
A lesson of deep silence we received,
Whose ardour never shall our souls forget.

Since we were more alone amid the plain,
The dawn and evening entered more our thought,
Our eyes were franker and our hearts more sweet
And with the world's desire more fully fraught.

We found content in not exacting it;
The sadness, even, of the days was kind,
And the rare sunlight of the autumn's end
Charmed us