Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/140

POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND To have her with me there alone,—

'T was love and fear and triumph blended.

At last we reached the foot-worn stone

Where that delicious journey ended.

The old folks, too, were almost home;

Her dimpled hand the latches fingered,

We heard the voices nearer come,

Yet on the doorstep still we lingered.

She shook her ringlets from her hood

And with a "Thank you, Ned," dissembled,

But yet I knew she understood

With what a daring wish I trembled.

A cloud passed kindly overhead,

The moon was slyly peeping through it,

Yet hid its face, as if it said,

"Come, now or never! do it! do it!"

My lips till then had only known

The kiss of mother and of sister,

But somehow, full upon her own

Sweet, rosy, darling mouth,—I kissed her!

Perhaps 't was boyish love, yet still,

O listless woman, weary lover!

To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill

I'd give—but who can live youth over.

THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW

more on the fallow hillside, as of old, I lie at rest

For an hour, while the sunshine trembles through the walnut-tree to the west,— 110