Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/49



I know that I am worthier to-day

Of your consent than in that long ago

When first I loved you. All the winding way

Was somehow shot with an enlightening ray

That taught me things that I had need to know.

At every step there lay some sign, to show

How best to win you, where I had but lost:

The years were stern and merciless, but oh,

With you the prize, how little seems the cost:—

’T were in my heart tenfold the price to pay!

I often wondered if you ever guessed

How over leagues of sea your influence sped,

How in my every mood of vague unrest

Completest calm crept close against my breast,

Night lightened, and the dawn was mine instead:

And if, perchance, when, woven thread by thread,

My rhyme-linked thoughts lay on some printed page,

They came unto your hand, and, as you read,

You knew them birds bred in your soul’s pure cage,

That I had kissed, and given again the West.