  Can I forget how, when you stood 'Mid orchards whence the bloom had fled, Stars made the orchards seem a-bud, And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead With shining ghosts of blossoms dead? Or when you bowed, a lily tall, Above your drowsy lilies, slim, Transparent pale, that by the wall Like cups of moonlight seemed to swim, Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim? And in the cloud that lingered low— A silent pallor in the west— There stirred and beat a golden glow, Like some great heart that could not rest, A heart of gold within its breast. Your heart, your soul were in the wild: You loved to hear the whippoorwill Lament its love, when, dewy mild, The harvest scent made musk the hill. You loved to walk, where oft had trod The red deer, o'er the fallen hush Of Fall's torn leaves, when th' ivy-tod Hung frosty by each berried bush. Still do the whippoorwills complain Above your listless lilies, where The moonlight their white faces stain; Still flows the dreaming streamlet there, Whispering of rest an easeful air.... O music of the falling rain, At night unto her painless rest Sound sweet not sad! and make her fain To feel the wildflowers on her breast Lift moist, pure faces up again To breathe a prayer in fragrance blessed. Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed Old, gnarly arms above her tomb, Where oft I sit and dream her ghost Smiles, like a blossom, through the gloom; Dim as a mist,—that summer lost,— Of tangled starbeam and perfume. |
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