Page:The Farmer's Bride (New Edition).djvu/42

 HE forest road, The infinite straight road stretching away World without end: the breathless road between the walls Of the black listening trees: the hushed, grey road Beyond the window that you shut to-night Crying that you would look at it by day— There is a shadow there that sings and calls But not for you. Oh! hidden eyes that plead in sleep Against the lonely dark, if I could touch the fear And leave it kissed away on quiet lids— If I could hush these hands that are half-awake, Groping for me in sleep I could go free. I wish that God would take them out of mine And fold them like the wings of frightened birds Shot cruelly down, but fluttering into quietness so soon, Broken, forgotten things; there is no grief for them in the green Spring When the new birds fly back to the old trees. But it shall not be so with you. I will look back. I wish I knew that God would stand Smiling and looking down on you when morning comes, To hold you, when you wake, closer than I, So gently though: and not with famished lips or hungry arms: He does not hurt the frailest, dearest things As we do in the dark. See, dear, your hair— I must unloose this hair that sleeps and dreams About my face, and clings like the brown weed To drowned, delivered things, tossed by the tired sea Back to the beaches. Oh! your hair! If you had lain A long time dead on the rough, glistening ledge Of some black cliff, forgotten by the tide, The raving winds would tear, the dripping brine would rust away Fold after fold of all the loveliness That wraps you round, and makes you, lying here, The passionate fragrance that the roses are.